Ignition
by Atlantia
Summary: MOVIEVERSE SamxBumblebee SEQUEL TO COMBUSTION. After the struggles of the last few weeks, Sam and Bumblebee think they have finally escaped and can live their lives in peace. But with 3 different factions after them, their time and choices are running out
1. Chapter 1

**Ignition**

_Well since everyone seemed keen for a sequel this is the announcement that there will be one :)_

_Title is Ignition (sticking with the engine/car titles because hey – I love cars)._

_This is the teaser which I am posting both under 'Combustion' and under its new title (which I'm sure probably violates some website rule) so that people will know to look for it and can set up alerts etc if they wish to._

_Looking forward to writing for you people again. I've had my like week off and am keen to go again. See what happens when you imply that you're interested? – you end up STUCK with me!!! Oh and have you all had enough of my 'like, totally, like,' speaking style? Believe it or not I DO speak like that… I'm a product of growing up in the 90's :) _

_By the way, I tried really hard in both Combustion and in this chapter to make sure the time zones are correctly reflected… The west coast of the US is 18 hours behind the east coast of Australia, so while it's 10am Friday for us, it's 4pm Thursday for you (most of you) and since I'm going with the idea that the movie took place in California, (I hear differing points of view on this so I'm taking creative license… Plus I've been to California so I at least know a little bit) so I tried to make the times/days reflect that._

**Teaser/Chapter 1**

The sun beat down with an intensity that the young man wasn't used to, made obvious by the sweat pouring down his face as his hand lifting to shade himself a little from the brilliant blue sky. In the far distance faint hints of cloud barely crested the horizon behind the island just offshore, an inviting image that probably graced the cover of many a travel magazine. Behind him the breakwater curved into what eventually became a river, a few highrises marking what must have been the business district, the manmade structures overshadowed by the enormous red tinted cliffs of the hill next to them. He was wearing nothing more than board shorts and a wifebeater, a baseball cap his only protection from the rays that scorched the human skin as easily as a barbeque cooked a steak. The enormous cargo ship beside him was unloading, its few travellers disembarking as cranes rolled along giant iron rails to begin the slow task of removing the many different types of items stacked and stored aboard.

The large stern door that towered above him abruptly came to life with a shrill whistle of warning sirens, red flashing lights at each corner announcing its slow descent toward the ground. Behind it the cavernous hold of the ship loomed like a fluorescent lit cave, vanishing into the distance until the bow couldn't be made out. Stored within was row after row of multicoloured cars, stacked like children's toys in a box, neatly and perfectly parked by the crew before leaving port. Now it would be the job of this crew to oversee the equally long and arduous task of getting them off.

A shrill ringing tone cut through the sounds of the dock and machinery, the black bag at the man's feet vibrating slightly against his calf, causing him to bend over and extract a small curved mobile phone from the side pocket. He raised it to his ear and flipped the clamshell open, his other hand lifting to press against the opposite ear to minimise the noise.

"Lennox here." There was too much ambient noise in the air to hear even a dull murmur of the voice on the other end of the line, the cranes and machinery continuing their thankless chores in the background.

"Yes I understand that. We both do. We know how to take care of ourselves." The hard eyes observed as a large truck was driven carefully out of the hold, the hand pressed to his ear temporarily lifted to wave, the crew member driving over as he evidently noticed the waving limb.

"We're not going to do anything stupid, this is me you're talking to." The truck drew to a halt in the bright sunlight, the driver stepping down from the cab of the pickup and handing over the keys. The man nodded in what must have been thanks, but as soon as the keys left his hand the staffer was turning away in a brisk jog back toward the cool and shaded interior of the ship. The machine and the man were left alone on the hot black asphalt for a second before the shining vehicle shuddered for a second, and with a whirring sound the steering wheel was folded away into the dash before reappearing on the opposite side of the cab.

"Ha ha Maggie, you're a regular riot. Look we know why we're here and we'll fly below the radar ok. We'll track them down. And tell Keller to stop laughing, he knows speakerphone works both ways right?" In the distance the chain link gate that closed off the far end of the wharf slowly slid open, a plain white sedan waiting patiently for it to finish.

"Besides, shouldn't he be more concerned with tracking down the decepticons? And get someone out to the Witwicky's, I haven't been able to get a hold of them for at least a week, and if Sam tries to reach someone it'll be them." With a soft whisper of tyres the white sedan drew to a halt between the truck and the speaker, a plain, slightly overweight, middle aged man stepping out of the driver's door, tie and jacket fully fastened in spite of the heat.

"Yeah well keep us updated ok? Just cos we're at the ass end of the world doesn't mean you can forget about us." The phone was pulled away from the curve of the man's ear as a squawk that even sounded louder than the machinery came out of the small handheld phone. A smile crossed his face as he pressed it back in place.

"Alright, fine that was uncalled for. I apologise. We've already been searching the globe for weeks though without success, the novelty is definitely starting to wear off here." The occupant of the white car made no move to approach while the phone conversation was going on, standing next to the closed door of his vehicle, black attaché case firmly in hand.

"Fine, but the satellites have lied before and there's been no sign of Megatron, Starscream, Sam or Bumblebee at any of the coordinates they detected. If this place doesn't pan out I think it might be time to accept that they really don't want to be found yet." Behind the unknown man in the suit the large truck flashed its lights, the younger man rolling his eyes in response.

"Yeah ok I gotta go Maggie, you know who is getting antsy and I've already seen those cannons close enough for one lifetime. Keep in touch ok? Bye." The clamshell clicked as it flipped shut, carefully slipped back into the bag which was hoisted over a muscular shoulder.

"Captain Lennox?" Not a drop of sweat appeared on the man's face, in spite of the heat, the one he was speaking to frantically flapping his singlet to get some air circulating.

"Who else were you expecting? I take it you're the contact I'm supposed to meet?" A smile suddenly appeared on the elder's face, the white teeth glowing in the sun.

"I.O. Patterson sir, the D.G. personally gave me the orders to meet you here, so you'll understand if this is a somewhat unusual situation for me. ASIO isn't traditionally in the business of covertly sneaking US military officers _into_ the country, especially with a great lump of a truck." The two clasped hands in a friendly if somewhat cautious manner.

"Yes well, this is a once in a lifetime mission Agent Patterson, so you'll need to excuse us if it seems we're foregoing the usual inter-departmental niceties, but my orders came direct from the top." The hand that wasn't weighed down by the attaché case waved dismissively as the briefcase was placed on the white bonnet beside them and with a press the lid flipped open.

"Don't worry about it, dealing with the unexpected is all part of our jobs right? Anyway I've got all your documentation in here for you. Drivers licence, vehicle registration, medicare card, three hundred in cash as well as an agency credit card and a warning sticker for your car being left hand drive." There was a moment's pause as they both looked at the truck sitting innocently nearby, the wheel clearly visible on the right.

"Hmmm. My mistake. Anyway, there're also some papers that should take care of any trouble with local law enforcement, but the agency insisted that I pass on that this doesn't mean you have free reign to do whatever you want. I've also thrown in some maps and contact numbers. Oh, and it should go without saying that you are not to threaten or harm anyone, nor participate in any police action without approval from the D.G. himself." The papers and cards were carefully removed from the case and folded then slid into the shoulder bag.

"Understood." It appeared there was nothing else to be said between them, and with a nod the suit clad agent returned to the interior of his white sedan. A second later the engine purred to life and guided the vehicle back towards the gate it had entered through, the guard waving it through without asking to see any ID. The door of the large truck swung open almost like an invitation, and the backpack was slung up into the cab with practiced ease.

"Well big guy, ready to try all this again?" With a rumble the machine came to life and the man hoisted himself into the driver's seat, the belt sliding around him to lock him in place.

"Will, may I ask a question?" The voice seemed to come from nowhere in particular, a warm tone to it that echoed in the cabin.

"Sure partner." The man in the driver's seat was sorting through the papers and other items he had just received, some placed in a wallet, others in the backpack, while the remainder were secreted somewhere about his person.

"The human word 'town' refers to a small community is this not correct?" The head nodded distractedly in an affirmative.

"Then why is a moderately sized regional capital called 'Townsville'?" The man's laugh was sharp, the wallet tossed onto the opposite seat.

"Ok, ok, you've been trapped in the hold of the ship for a week, I get it, we'll talk. You just keep your sensors out for anything unusual." The truck vibrated a little as they turned onto what looked like a main street.

"Always, my friend."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The house rang with unearthly silence, the absence of sound becoming a sound itself as the ear tricked itself into hearing things that simply weren't there. The upstairs bedrooms were open, the doors and windows wide, letting in the air from outside. In one room several posters had come loose from the walls, joining scattered clothes and knick knacks on the floor, fluttering a little in the breeze. In the hallway a couple of dry leaves stirred restlessly on the timber floor, sliding with a faint hiss across the polish, twirling with each other in a secret dance before disappearing into an open door. Beneath an open window next to the stairs a small puddle of water had collected between the banister and the skirting board, a lake brought to life by recent rains blown under the eve, the plasterboard under the windowsill streaked brown with die run from the curtains.

Downstairs the atmosphere was just as heavy, the lounge room silent and unoccupied, most of the curtains stirring slightly in the wind. Beside the couch, one of the large drapes was caught on a timber end table, the vast swathe of fabric blocking off one corner of the room like a screen, evidence of a fierce gust of wind that had also tossed the magazines into a frenzy of brightly coloured, glossy paper, raining them onto the carpet where they joined a smashed lamp, victim of the curtain's rage. Across the room the large television that usually filled the house with sound sat dead and dark, the remote lying haphazardly on a cushion as though its user had thrown it there in a rush, a thin film of dust coating it as proof of the period of inactivity.

Through the archway, a glimpse of the dining room presented an equally vacant spectacle, the china cabinet against one wall stood open, several antique or collectible plates and cups laid out on the table nearby. Cleaning supplies sat ignored on the polished timber surface, a bottle that still contained traces of something green now lying on its side, the contents spilt in a once viscous mass across the table top. Now dry, only an outline remained, but where the liquid had touched, the polish had blistered and cracked, the glossy veneer peeling and flaking to pieces, as though the furniture was desperately trying to shed the damaged section, as an animal would shed dead skin. Where the damage met the table edge, a small stalactite of chemical clung to the lip, the only remaining evidence of the cleaner's presence, a dusty circle on the floor beneath it created by runoff from the spill above. A decorative plate lay broken next to it, several unconnected pieces scattered to the corners of the room, but the remainder still able to give the impression of George Washington's stern gaze from its shattered porcelain face.

From the dining room the kitchen beckoned like a dark mouth, the blinds here closed, casting thin beams of light through the gaps, turning the room into a black and white universe of film noir-esque qualities. Set before the blinds behind the sink, a row of terracotta pots was laid out in single file, the soil within gone dry. Protruding from them were the brown and desiccated stalks of plants, a botanist required to be able to determine their original species or genus. Beside the bench, the fridge hummed quietly in the corner, the only audible sound in the otherwise silent house, the temperature gauge on the front throwing a faint green glow. On the other side of the room, standing beside the door to the front foyer, an antique clock appeared frozen at 2pm, the pendulum unmoving behind its glass panel, the ubiquitous ticking silenced. Hanging around it, the chains of the mechanism were fully extended, their weights lying in the bottom of the case, as though they had strained to keep the timepiece running even as gravity unceremoniously pulled them onto their side and robbed them of power.

In the centre of the kitchen the table was neatly laid, a tea set arrayed in the middle, clean and sparkling in the dusty, striped air. Surrounding it like a bevy of loyal bodyguards were arrayed five cups and saucers, a noticeable gap marking a missing sixth set that was nowhere to be seen. Beside them, a generic supermarket loaf of bread lay sealed in its plastic coffin, the green and white mould that covered it like a forest, moving slowly in undulating waves as hidden creatures burrowed beneath its surface.

Past the moving bread, on the hard tiles of the floor, a sparkling cascade of light shimmered, a breadcrumb like trail of silvered glass stretching toward the foyer, both beckoning the eye to follow it to its source and warning the observer not to obey. It disappeared through the door with a fan like spray, the path crossing the deep red carpet before eventually leading to its point of origin. A tall sideboard lay across the narrow entry, the mirror that had adorned it smashed violently as, unable to collapse completely onto its side, it had slammed into the opposite wall, now propped up there like a drunken sailor. The drawers had slid forward as it fell, spilling their contents out to spread themselves amongst the sharp glass daggers; keys, placemats and assorted junk collected over a lifetime, now little more than brightly coloured confetti throughout the small room. Hats and coats that had somehow managed not to come loose during the collapse still hung from their hooks, the angle causing them to hang at an odd degree from the cabinet. Across the back of one of them a crimson stain, now dried almost black, marred the cream jacket, the outline of fingers clearly visible in the smear of colour. Another matching handprint marred the coffee coloured wallpaper not far away, the clean outline turning into a smear before streaking towards the front door. Sliced in amongst the stain, several gashes gouged into the wall, the small grooves resembling fingernails that had desperately scrabbled for purchase, evidence that whoever had left them had done so unwillingly.

Beneath the marks, the carpet had been bunched and ruffled, the woven lushness piled like a discarded napkin on a dinner tray, the runner torn from its fastenings, a man's shoe wrapped up within its billowing folds. Behind them a faint glimmer of light came from the corner near the front door, a brassy reflection that announced the presence of a shell casing, unmarked and featureless except for the slight smear of powder residue that was scorched through the interior and around the rim. The door itself was closed and locked, the deadbolt slid home, however the bracket it slid into had been torn loose from the timber door frame. Around the handle the wood was splintered and buckled, the catch barely caught on the remnants of the striker plate, just enough to keep the door closed against the breeze the stirred the plants outside.

The garden itself appeared slightly unkempt, the grass just a little too long, the plants a fraction too wild, the edges of the path marginally out of alignment. Several small ditches had been dug up across the lawn, a large weight dragged unwillingly across its manicured surface. Two large gouges were also scoured in the gravel of the driveway that ran alongside it, the stones scattered across the grass like seashells at the beach, two plumes of pebbles that almost resembled accusatory arrows, pointing out to the street, urging any who saw them to pursue their unknown target, a warning that help was needed. In the garage a single car sat undisturbed, a blind, mute witness to the events that had transpired, while around the house neighbourhood life continued.

_Fin_

_Ok, this is the trailer/prologue. Is it worth continuing?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Ignition**

_Well thanks to the response I'll definitely be continuing this fic :) I was a bit worried that the popularity of Combustion wouldn't transfer over to the new one. You know when you read a really good book that's the first part of something and it's REALLY good but by the end of it you're just kind of over it even though it's great? I think that happens a lot in fanfiction. I mean have you ever tried to wade your way through some of the HP fiction out there? Even the best written fic starts to wear a bit thin after about 200,000 words :D_

_Not all of them but sometimes._

_Anyway… Thanks to the wonderful people who reviewed, including DeMarcos, who I totally had forgotten was also reading another Fic of mine so I got 2 reviews ;) thanks! And thanks to Dania as well for letting me know she hasn't died and dropped off the face of the earth :)_

_Ok, we return to the Sam/Bee stuff. Oh and _

_**BE WARNED! This chapter contains disturbing and adult content!**_

**Chapter 2**

Sam sat quietly, balanced atop the back of the park bench, his feet on the seat, his arms resting lax across his knees. The sea breeze was fresh, light, and invigorating, the saltiness adding a spice of energy that seemed to brighten the eyes and enhance the senses. To the left, the steady buzz of small wheels accompanied the local kids messing around in the skate park, their loops and stunts more aimed at their girlfriends than the other skaters around them. Cyclists passed him by at intermittent intervals, some in groups, some couples and some solo, while walkers and joggers carefully stepped out of their way before continuing toward their destination. The paths crisscrossed the green beachfront park, the sunlight throwing a pattern of light and shadow onto the grass and concrete. It beat down upon him with comforting and friendly warmth, the kind that invited women to let their hair down and men to shed their shirts. It was no wonder some of the passers by gave him strange looks. His long sleeved, high collared top may have been loose and made of a light, billowy material, but it was still out of place when surrounded by the sleeveless tees and bare chests of the beach and foreshore. The buttons were done all the way up, the hook at the top fastened into place and holding the almost priest-like collar tightly closed about his throat. It was a necessary adjustment in his fashion, as was the now slightly below ear length hair.

The changes had started gradually at first, the spread of the silvery veins so slow as to almost be unnoticeable to his own eyes. It had only been when he'd dressed to go for a walk along the beach one afternoon and had seen faint shining lines reaching beyond the edge of his t-shirt collar, that he'd realised they were growing. The veins had spread at first like a child's scribble, seeming haphazard and random, curling across his left pec and arm, down across his side and back up across his shoulder blade, to rejoin the silver circlet that now ringed the base of his neck. B had assured him that they posed him no harm, a promise that he didn't question then and didn't need to now. But by the same token, B had not been able to tell him exactly what they were doing either, except that the slowly spreading web was a result of the allspark, a conclusion he'd already been able to reach on his own. So he had changed his clothes and habits, first to collared shirts, then long sleeved as well once it had spread far enough down his bicep, and life had continued pretty much as it had been since they'd arrived. When it had made its way down his spine like the twining stalks of a vine, B had done a detailed scan again, the results still negative for detrimental effects, and when it had done the same thing up the back of his neck and across his scalp he had simply let his hair grow out and down. But then something else had happened, and their lives were changing yet again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had struck while he was at work, the café as crowded and busy as it usually was, he and the rest of the wait staff struggling to meet the demand. He had been carrying a tray of food to table number six, a couple of baskets of chips and a burger, when his body had suddenly left his control. It seemed as though without warning his muscles went lax, his legs folding underneath him. Within the space of a step he dropped to the ground, tray falling from nerveless hands and crashing to the hard floor with a smash, fried potato and tomato sauce decorating the terracotta tiles. He'd been able to feel his body twitching, writhing almost like a seizure while people screamed and panicked around him, a strong voice asking people to step back and give him air while his body tried to snap itself in half. A crawling, itching sensation travelled from the base of his spine to his skull, feeling as though the silver strands that now intertwined amongst his vertebrae had twisted and tightened, seizing his nerves and bones in their metallic grip. The episode had lasted at most, maybe thirty seconds, barely time for people to have reached him from their tables, some not sure whether he had fallen due to disease or medical condition, and then it was over with the same suddenness it began. His twitching stilled and he felt the control over his limbs and muscles return to him. He'd drawn in a shaky breath and slowly lifted a hand in front of his face, partly to show the crowd surrounding him that he was ok, and partly to show himself.

Ben had swiftly told him to take the rest of the day off, and the next one as well, with a third available if he needed it. He'd made his excuses, blaming heatstroke and a slight cold, thanked the man for the rest and promptly made his escape, feeling the eyes of the customers on him till he turned a corner on the street. He'd bolted then, breaking into a panic fuelled sprint toward Bumblebee and help, not even removing his apron in the rush. The small dead end street they had chosen was practically abandoned, a little used park on one side, a storm water drain runoff on the other, and when B had seen him tear around the corner in obvious alarm he had transformed without second thought, cannons out and aimed back toward the intersection. When he'd collapsed against a cool metallic ridge of the large bot's foot his hands had almost torn the shirt clear off, several of the buttons flying off into the grass and dirt until the last one gave way and he hurled it to the ground. His hand crept tentatively across the skin of his side, making its way toward his spine with the same cautiousness one would use when about to prod an open wound, unable to predict how much pain one would find or cause. However it had not been open or bloody flesh that met his questing fingertips but smooth and rigid metal, his other hand rushing to touch as well, the second contact only confirming the first. A series of overlapping plates now covered his spine, the triangular pieces pointing upward over his back, the point of each covered by the one above it and apparently welded over his flesh. Of their composition or colour he'd been unable to determine, but his fingers could find no gap between his skin and the alloy, no sign of an imperfection or flaw, nor any method to explain their connection. He'd slowly flexed his back underneath them, worried the movement might tear the skin like stretching pastry, but his fingers had felt them slide and move over each other without creating even a miniscule opening. To each side of his spinal column his skin was still the same unbroken layer it had always been, the plates overlapping it but limited solely to directly over his backbone. They layered in a thin strip from his tailbone up to the base of his skull, the plates getting smaller and smaller as they travelled upwards, until the trail simply seemed to meld back into skin again where his scalp began.

His eyes had been wide and unseeing in his fright, his hands continuously running up and down his back, feeling the metal slide and move with his muscles, testing and prodding at them with the same morbid obsession that made children play with a loose tooth. As his breath had grown more uneven and shock had started to overtake him his testing fingers had turned into scrabbling claws, his fingernails trying to dig under the plates like a bear chewing its own leg off to escape a trap. He had been unable to make any progress however, his nails unable to get purchase on the edge of the metal and not sharp enough to do much damage to the skin surrounding them. He had done little more than to give himself several small surface scratches when the gentle fingers of his autobot had delicately grasped his arms and pulled them away from his back, holding them out from his sides like a cross as the large head lowered to stare at his strange alteration. It had been a different sensation to the scans he'd been subjected to before, each pass of Bumblebee's sensors across his spine was like a physical caress, like a faint breeze against the metal surface of the plates that somehow he could feel. He'd shivered under that ethereal touch until the scans were complete, his arms released to hang limply at his side while B had lowered himself to crouch before him, head bent over so they were eye to optic.

He hadn't needed to put voice to his fears and questions, his guardian knowing him well enough to read them directly from both his eyes and his body, but he had done it anyway.

"Am I dying B? Is it like it was before?" The words quivered in the afternoon air, less than a sob but more than afraid.

"No Sam. This has nothing in common with what happened to you before. Last time you were afflicted with the energy of a spark; a power and life force you were never meant to have. Now you are infected by the allspark, the source of _all_ sparks." His large, yet somehow still delicate fingers, had gently caressed the unnatural metal additions to Sam's body, the sensation of the metal to metal contact sending shivers up his spine.

"Isn't that worse though? If a single spark has the energy to kill me then what will the allspark do?" He'd frantically wiped at the moisture accumulating in his eyes, desperate not to return to that after weeks spent free of it.

"No my bonded, it is amazingly better, it is incredible." Bumblebee's voice had almost been reverent then; the tone that of a priest granted a vision of god made flesh.

"This is not a foreign life that is inside you, fighting against your own body in an effort to control it. This is the _source_ of life itself, designed to nurture and create cybertronian life." Sam had been horrified at the implications. Not just of the words themselves, but of the worshipful tone in which his partner had spoken them. His own voice had sounded pitifully small to his ears.

"You mean I'm turning into a robot? Into something like you?" He hadn't meant it to come out the way it had, but if the terrified nature of his question had offended Bumblebee the bot didn't show it, the careful and soothing caresses along his spine continuing without pause.

"No Sam. It is certainly using the same pathways and networks left behind in your mind and body as the original spark, but your life is dependant on your organic parts to function. Your mind does not work on the same principals and thought patterns as ours. If you were to be dropped into a body constructed like mine you would be driven insane. Without our ability to understand the sheer volume of raw data our sensors and systems provide us with, you would quickly shutdown, more than likely unable ever to wake again. No, it appears the allspark is doing something entirely different." There had been a brief pause in the synthesised speech and Sam felt the gentle touch of B's sensors across his back again, no doubt going over every inch of his body at the same time, but the metal plates of his spine apparently the only parts able to detect them.

"It has detected the presence of the old spark, and it is trying to create a body in order to house that life-force." His arms had been wrapped around his middle, face going slightly paler than it already was.

"It's going to create another spark?" The soft whirring of gears that accompanied Bumblebee's negative response had briefly created a surge of relief before reality had reminded him that there were a million other ways an alien artefact could probably kill him.

"No. It seems it believes you still have the spark within you, but it also knows that an organic body cannot sustain it, so it is necessary for it to alter that in order to fulfil its purpose. It is changing you into something else Sam. Something different. The allspark cannot affect your organic form itself, so it is doing it the only way it can, by creating something else to do it. It has absorbed the shrapnel that was in your body after the battle and turned it into nano-machines, billions of microscopic robots whose sole purpose is the preservation and protection of your life." He had experienced a pang of both anger and anguish at the explanation, comprehending that the autobot had been aware of this for some time but had not told him and kept the knowledge to himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Surprisingly Bumblebee had neither seemed ashamed nor embarrassed at his lie of omission, his glowing optics never wavering from Sam's gaze.

"Because you are happy here, bonded. The most content I have ever seen you since we met. I wanted you to enjoy what you had for as long as possible. If I had told you what was happening to you and why, it would have meant understanding that we cannot stay in our little world here forever. That we must return. Every day you spent here after that would be tainted by that knowledge, and you would never be as happy again. Sometimes we must shelter those we love from the truth, just as sometimes we must force them to see it." The blue of his guardian's stare had become piercingly bright, the touch against his spine becoming slightly harder and more possessive.

"We are bonded Sam, joined, mated and inseperable until both of us cease to function. You don't truly understand what that means. I can never have another and I will never want another, I will sacrifice anything and everything to have you. Nothing I do, nothing I say, nothing I think is untainted by that, and I will do what I have to in order to protect it." The words had become almost harsh towards the end, the force becoming one of righteous anger, a zealot speaking fervently about his god. Energy had surged across their bond and through the hand against his spine and he had gasped as images swam through his mind almost too fast to see. Like fevered daydreams they'd flashed past, images and sounds of a million possibilities that Bumblebee wished for him to see.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He arrived at the edge of the lookout like a spy, an observer without a body, witnessing the brightness of the sun but feeling none of its warmth. A large crowd was packed into the open space, some friends, some strangers and some unknown. His parents were conversing with a figure that resembled an older version of himself, Bumblebee sitting just behind him, one hand cupped protectively near his back. The grass was lush and green beneath his gaze, the sky a brilliant blue that made oceans weep in shame; it was a world bright and beautiful. In the distance towering buildings graced the horizon, stretching far taller than anything mankind had built to date, the glass and metal catching the sunlight, and shattering it into a rainbow made up of a thousand colours. Large robotic figures moved amongst them, rendered as ants next to the towers that breached the sky, small craft soaring effortlessly through the atmosphere. Above even them an enormous artificial ring circled from one horizon to the other, pinpricks of light arriving and departing from it without pause, a never ending display of activity. Children played not too far off, darting in and out of the legs of Optimus Prime, Ironhide sitting nearby polishing his cannons while Ratchet and an older Mikaela conversed near a barbeque. The party showed no signs of its purpose, but as fireworks started to burst in the sky there was a flash and the experience was gone.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instead he was at the beachfront near the café, facing the crashing waves that met the shore. However the foreshore was a dramatically different place to earlier, smoke rising from the ruined buildings and houses, people screaming and running from the two enormous robots fighting far over their heads. Bumblebee's cannons flashed with their fire, the blue bolts slamming mercilessly into the red and blue face of Optimus Prime, the larger autobot stumbling backwards at the hit and almost falling onto the already ruined buildings surrounding them. B moved with a speed that seemed unearthly considering his size, his form crouched low and menacingly as he swiftly crossed the distance between them, his arms circling Prime's waist and hurling both of them crashing to the ground along the beach, throwing sand and earth in all directions. The autobot leader's hands moved even before they'd stopped their fall, both fists smashing into the yellow shields that protected B's face, the impacts leaving the left one dented and twisted, smashing the right one clean off and hurling it into the ocean's green depths. Blue cannon fire targeted Prime's face again before blocking a second volley of blows aimed for Bumblebee's face, while one of his hands slammed repeatedly into the blue and red armoured chest. It appeared to be having no impact at first, until the sound of rending metal tore the air with its shriek, and a large portion of the bot's plating was thrown up and onto the sand. They both seemed to freeze for a second at that point, then Optimus' hands reached for those of his younger opponent. The yellow armoured autobot swiftly dodged the grasp of the larger one with an ease that seemed almost taunting, turning both his cannon barrels into the open tear in his former leader's chest, and then discharged both weapons. Flame painted arms fell lifelessly back to earth with a shock that shook the buildings across the street. Beside him he became aware of hesitant movement, a shadowed shape stepping out from underneath a tree. Sunlight met both smooth flesh and cold metal, the face and right arm and shoulder the only portion of himself he still recognised in the creature before him. Black metal plates covered him like body armour, the skin between the metal now silver. Beneath the skin a network of veins and arteries was clearly visible, not looking as much like the human circulatory system as much as hydraulics and cables, a perverted version of the Master Chief from the Halo games made real. Bumblebee was in front of the figure and crouched down within a second, the body of his former mentor and leader forgotten as swiftly as he had died. The large yellow hand that had so ruthlessly torn open Prime's chest only seconds ago, delicately caressed the cheek of what appeared to be himself, his non-robotic arm raising to touch B's face in a copy of the gesture. The look of adoration and devotion that crossed both faces was terrifying in its intensity, and he forced himself to look away.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instead of finding himself staring at the ocean however the scene changed yet again, the colour leeching away like water, the sky made of nothing but roiling and churning clouds as far as the eye could see. The air was parched, no water remained on this world, any trace of life long since reduced to ash and its surface nothing but blasted and blackened stone. Even through the thick and permanent clouds the sun was a large red disk that almost filled in the sky, long finished with the hydrogen in its core, its march toward death was well underway, and the planets now almost complete. The landscape no longer resembled anything he could recognise or distinguish, but he somehow knew the image was still that of earth, an inbred instinct that told him this was home. A large hulking mass sat crouched amidst the devastation, debris and dust piled around and through it, only a bare glimmer remaining of the powerful blue optics. No trace of colour remained on the hunched form, time or the harsh conditions stripping everything until only bare metal remained. Its hands were cupped protectively around a small memorial plate that appeared to be made of the same material as the machine above it. His eyes watered and his throat dried out as he made out his own name scrawled across its surface, the plaque clear of marks and debris, apparently untouched amidst the devastation around it. The guardian however no longer seemed capable of tending to this task, and even as he watched the glow flickered and disappeared for a second before coming back to life, dimmer than moments ago. Within an instant they dropped out again, taking longer this time to come back on, the lights steeped in panic, as though desperately trying to stave off the inevitable. Another, brighter light flashed from the robot's eyes, something flickering on the ground near its cupped hands before a young man appeared. He seemed to dim and fluctuate for a minute before becoming more solid, his long legs clad in black jeans, a matching black shirt stretched tight across his chest, draped with a bright yellow leather jacket. He looked to be around 24/25, the golden coloured hair streaked with obsidian, hanging loose around his neck while thick bangs fell in front of his eyes. The glow of the optics above him may have been fading but the brilliance shone defiantly from those eyes, a blue so brilliant and electric they seemed to dare the universe to try to put them out. He fell to the ground between the enormous metal hands, hair and jacket undisturbed by the wind howling around them, leaning carefully forward to run fervent hands across the metal rectangle before him. No sound could reach above the scream of the wind, but the mouth was clearly visible in the dull red glow.

"I promised I'd never leave you Sam. Swore you'd never be alone again. I've tried as hard as I can, but I'm going to have to break that vow to you now. I love you. More than anything. But I can't hold out anymore. Please, forgive me." Pink lips pressed against the cold plaque, fingers gently caressing the inscription on its surface before the optics of the large machine went off, and the figure came apart and was gone.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He'd gasped like a drowning man as the visions released him, drawing in air until the act was painful, before exhaling and falling against the hand beside him. He shook like a leaf in a wind, arms wrapped so tightly around himself they'd threatened to crack his ribs. He'd suddenly felt cold in the afternoon sun, a chill that came from within though, not without, and he felt like he'd need to swallow burning coals to ever feel warm again. It had becoming increasingly obvious to him in a terrifying way, that what he had accepted into his life by binding himself to Bumblebee was beyond a human concept such as love, was beyond any concept he could understand. It was a connection so overwhelming that he probably never would.

But it was also ok that he didn't understand it, because his autobot did; had accepted the bond knowing full well what it was and would do, and would carry out what had to be done, never asking for anything in return but what Sam was willing to give. He would kill for him, leave with him, abandon friends and colleagues he had known for thousands or millions of years without hesitation, would lie for him, and would lie to him, but would never consider _anything_ before him. It was a potent and dangerous bond that could destroy as easily as save.

"You understand." The voice hadn't expected an answer and he didn't have one to give. Nothing he had could possibly ever compare with what B had given to him. Even if he'd presented the autobot with the earth and megatron's head on a platter it wouldn't have paid off this debt. Not a literal debt of course, he knew he didn't actually owe Bumblebee anything other than what he wanted to. His guardian would never ask more than that, but he wanted, needed to give B everything. Maybe that would prove that even if he couldn't experience their bond in the same way or with the same intensity, that didn't make it any less important to him or to them. His thoughts must have been evident on his face, as Bumblebee pulled his head away from him slightly, sitting back on his heels, knees in the asphalt on each side of him.

"Sam?" He'd stepped in closer between the yellow and silver thighs without answering, allowing his hands to trail up the delicate mechanical components as he neared the autobot's waist. Shudders wracked the machine above him, the armour vibrating at his touch and an electronic moan emitting from his vocal processor. In front of him two large silver plates flanked a round protrusion with a slit along the top, the large shock absorbers that formed part of B's legs just slightly further off to each side. He could sense his autobot's hesitation, feel his question forming, but he couldn't let that question be put to voice. He didn't want to have to explain or ask for something he was supposed to be giving to the other, and so he'd carefully reached his hands forward and slipped them through the gap between the metal panels and that large bulge.

The reaction had been instantaneous and dramatic, the two hands that were behind him buried themselves in the ground with a crunch, his bot releasing a moan of such desperate need and want that the tone by itself had almost sent him over the edge. Beside him, the powerful pistons and springs that made up B's legs contracted and tensed, the metal emitting several shudders and clangs as components seemed to stress themselves to their limit. The flanges in front of him that surrounded the round shape he was caressing slid away from it, slightly down and out, allowing him to slip his arms in further, feeling B's inner heat warming his flesh as his hands travelled over numerous small protrusions and parts. Tentatively he pressed his body up against one of the plates that had just shifted out of the way, joining Bumblebee's voice with his own as his hard cock pressed against the surface. He turned his gaze up to where his autobot was watching him with single minded attention, holding the blue stare with his own as he slowly leant in closer and ran his tongue across the bulge. With a crunch the yellow hands sank further into the earth, the optics iris-ing shut and B's voice modulator cutting off with a sudden squeal of static. He ran his hands up and around the protrusion, the foot wide component moving slightly underneath his touch. He was just glad he'd found B's interface plug without needing to ask.

He carefully pulled himself up onto the body above him, shedding his remaining garments in barely a second, his feet find footholds in the thighs and then waist of his bonded, soon to be lover. The blue eyes had opened again at the feel of him climbing up, and he stared into them for a minute before leaning forward and placing a kiss on the disc that formed B's mouth, following it with a brief lick before stepping back and lowering slightly down.

"I'm going to do this B. This is the last thing I can give you of myself. Please?" It seemed the bot might refuse for a brief moment, the glow of his optics wavering with indecision, but then with a faint buzz the round cover he'd been paying so much attention to retracted to each side, revealing a huge bundle of cabling within, the end terminating in a variety of different shapes and sizes. As it slowly slid out of its cavity in B's body, slick with some sort of clear grease or lubricant, it certainly still looked like a penis, only made entirely of veins and arteries rather than skin and tissue. His own cock twitched at the sight and he briefly gave his guardian a look of gratitude for allowing him to gift him with his body as well as his heart and soul. With a crunch B's hands came free of the ground and twisted round behind him, allowing him to lean back on them, still sitting on his heels and knees. Sam managed to now mostly lie on the bot rather than stand, and he carefully slid down the metallic body until he felt the warm buzzing slickness of the large group of cables pressing against his ass. At a foot wide it was definitely too large for him to take, but he knew Bumblebee would never hurt him, and he was sure that some of the cables must be able to be used separate from the others or they'd have been made in one piece rather than this bulging group.

Sure enough, after a momentary pause while he settled himself, he felt something small but definitely slick gently probing against his entrance. He'd never done it before, but like most guys, even one's who previously thought they were straight, he knew the basics of the mechanics and allowed himself to relax. The object slid in smoothly with barely a twinge and he could feel it moving gently in and out in small but deepening thrusts. It moved around slightly inside him, the end pressing delicately against his walls before it touched against something different and he let out a choked scream, bucking himself against the metal beneath him. He looked up at B above him, silently begging for more, the autobot groaning at the wanton expression on his face as another, slightly thicker cable carefully penetrated his body. The two connectors twisted around each other inside him to form a single larger mass, continuing to thrust and move against the spot that forced raw cries of pleasure from his throat.

Something else happened then that he hadn't expected; a shock, like being electrocuted without the pain, shot from the back of his head straight down his spine. He could actually feel the metal plates along his vertebrae transmit the charge straight down his body, where it promptly jolted against the plugs inside him. Bumblebee's optics flared brightly, an electronic squeal shorting out his vocals again as his head fell backwards and his arms trembled beneath his weight. The jolts didn't stop however, like pulses of a heart they buzzed through his system down his back, each one causing B to shudder and vibrate at the intensity. Sam wanted more though and with a strangled voice he managed to gasp out his request. It seemed that whatever was happening to them it was definitely affecting his mate in a very extreme way, and when the third cable pressed against him it was substantially larger than the preceding two and also far less gentle. With a slight burn it slid home within him though, and as the three thicknesses linked together and started to move in unison Sam knew it would be over in only seconds. He hadn't even laid a hand on himself yet, but there wasn't going to be any need at this rate. The shocks down his back began to speed up as he got closer, going from pulses to almost a steady thrum that seemed to drive Bumblebee wild. His arms gave out beneath them and they collapsed onto the asphalt with a crunch. The movement drove the cables into Sam with a forcefulness that wrenched a scream from him, his hands frantically scrabbling for something to hold onto before finally grabbing hold of the bumper that made up B's chest, and then he came.

His autobot gave off a roar to announce his own climax, the sound eerily reminiscent of Megatron, echoing in the distance and setting off car alarms streets away, but at that moment Sam had been too far gone to even notice. His cum had painted the yellow and silver finish on B's armour with thick whiteness, shot after shot of it leaving him, each accompanied by a small cry. The thrumming started to die down then, not going back to its previous pulses, instead just gradually getting weaker. The bundle inside him gave a final few short thrusts as the energy dissipated, each one forcing another cry and spurt of white from him that was almost painful, before eventually they both were spent.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been absolutely amazing, far better than anything he could ever have imagined, and the sense that he now truly _belonged_ to his autobot was like an undeniable truth in his chest, his guardian, his bonded, his lover. They'd both given everything of themselves to the other, and as he sat there on the back of the bench, watching the people around him, he didn't experience a single moment of regret. Not for the disturbance to his life, his friends, the pain he'd suffered and not even for what the allspark was doing to his body.

If it allowed him to have B, then no sacrifice was too great.

_Fin_

_Wow… LONG chapter, and a lot of squik (or whatever you wanna call it). I'm sure it probably violates website policy though… Guess we'll find out :)_

_I'm sure this chapter won't be what everyone wanted it to be but I guess we'll find that out too:D_


	3. Chapter 3

**Ignition**

_Ok, I thought I'd put this in here cos a couple of people were confused by the visions in the last chapter :) They were visions not necessarily of any particular time, but of possibilities that B had gone through in choosing his relationship with Sam, a bunch of 'maybe' futures that showed exactly what Bumblebee would do for Sam and how serious he was._

The first one showed a happy future in which Sam grows up and gets older, everyone stays friends, humanity obviously benefits greatly from the arrival of more autobots and the decepticons appear to have been vanquished. Their relationship is clearly known to the autobots and even the humans they are friends with, and Sam gets an element of that life that he wanted where he and Bee can be together in a real relationship.

The second is one in which obviously decisions had been made that turned the autobots further against Bee and Sam, though we don't know what that is - could be Sam's transformation (maybe Optimus wanted to remove the allspark or something etc) or any number of items. Subsequently Optimus had tracked them down. It's possible the others are dead or may simply be looking for them too far away to help and Bumblebee manages to get the upper hand at the end of the fight (where the vision kicks in). We see a Sam different to the first vision. Here he is transformed into something far more machine than man, where in the first he looks still like himself. If you picture Master Chief from Halo with black armour instead of green and silver between the armour instead of black and no right arm, shoulder or head armour. Here they have both degenerated until nothing remains in their world but their devotion to each other. It's not a pretty picture and Sam says as much, as he can't stand to see the looks in their eyes, empty of everything else.

Finally we cut to a possible future where Sam is dead (which would naturally populate the majority of Bumblebee's calculations) and in this one he has obviously vowed at some point never to leave, possibly a death bed request from a Sam feeling scared and alone. This Bumblebee has obviously taken it completely seriously, and interprets it to mean he must stand guard over what by then must surely be nothing but the metal plate. Not even Sam's bones would still actually have been there anymore. Most likely Bee is standing guard over the spot rather than the actual body. Despite having done this for clearly millions of years he still feels as though he has failed his task, begging forgiveness from the plaque in spite of the fact that he's clearly sacrificed everything and is dying through no fault of his own.

It's a subtle hint that the ability to command obediance from one's bondmate is not entirely one way, even if the bond isn't in balance :)

**Chapter 3**

"What do you mean no one knows? You're telling me they just disappeared off the face of the earth and no one noticed a thing?" There was quiet fury in the man's eyes as he clutched the phone to his ear, hand clenched around it seemingly almost hard enough to crack the delicate plastic device.

"How did they manage to get past the agents that were watching them?" The faint sound of the person on the other end of the line caused the angry expression to fade somewhat, becoming a grim worry that was directed toward the dash of the large truck he was sitting in.

"I see. I'm sorry you lost your men Secretary. I take it we're not talking the Decepticons here then, we're talking humans?" The contemplative gaze turned out through the tinted windows to the countryside rapidly speeding past, thick, almost impenetrable rainforest that stretched away on both sides of the road, as far as the eye could see.

"Well of course I agree it's them, that's not the question, the question is what would they have to gain? The Witwicky's are perfectly normal, nothing happened to them at all. They rode out the final battle sitting in a Section 7 holding cell for god's sake. They only know about what happened because Sam wanted them to and they were brought in for the debriefings. And if they're chasing after people who simply _know_ about the Autobots and Decepticons then they'd be chasing more than just Sam's parents." The lights in the dash of the truck seemed to flash for a second and the man lifted a hand to acknowledge it.

"I take it a closer watch is being kept on the rest of them?" There was a faint sound of assent audible in the large cabin.

"Good. Ironhide had something to say a minute ago about Section 7, just let me put him on." There was a beep as the speakerphone button was pressed, and then the sound of brief static before it cleared up. The man dropped the phone into the cup holder and settled back a bit.

"Ok, we're on." A deeper voice than the man's came out of the speakers inside the vehicle, but with a slight roughness to it that seemed to carry the same hardness and no nonsense attitude as the passenger.

"This changes things substantially Secretary Keller. The Witwicky's must be retrieved at all costs." There was a drawn out exhalation on the other end of the phone, the air across the microphone creating the occasional whistle.

"We're trying Ironhide, but we also have the Decepticons to track down, a war in another country and chaos in our intelligence agencies brought about by Section 7's apparent meddling. Plus there are a few people who aren't that keen to spend men and resources tracking down the parents of someone who just brought back the greatest threat the planet has known. I know we'd like them back…" There was a squeal from the truck that silenced the other speaker.

"I'm aware of all of that Secretary. I'm also aware that you understand they are a loving family, and you have considered that Sam would no doubt rush back to save them, a fact that you believe works in our favour." There was a pause before a response came over the connection, voice slow and carefully toned.

"I admit that the thought had occurred to me. As well as several of my analysts." The man sitting in the driver's seat tensed and sat up straighter, with an expression of shock on his face.

"Jesus Christ Keller, how could you even think about using innocent civilians like that?" The dash flashed at him again while the seat belt yanked tightly, the man pressed back into the seat, arms crossed petulantly across his chest.

"You don't need to explain Secretary, sometimes it is necessary to get dirty in a war, I think we all understand that. But before this is over you're going to find yourself fighting at least Section 7 and the Decepticons and possibly Sam and Bumblebee as well. And whether those sides are allied against you, or struggling amongst themselves, will depend on the choices you make right now." There was another pause and the slight squeak of chair springs as the person on the other end obviously sat down.

"Alright Ironhide, you've got my attention. What don't I know about this?" There was a sound almost like the voice coming from the car speakers was clearing its throat.

"There are… certain facts… which you're not aware of. Optimus chose to keep them from you, as at the time they were a private matter between the Autobots and he was worried you would not view it the same as us. There are some things you need to know however, so you can understand that what Sam and Bumblebee are going through is not what you think it is." The vehicle's passenger seemed just as intrigued as the pregnant silence coming from the phone.

"I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but they are not working with the Decepticons." As both of the men tried to interrupt, the truck kept speaking over the top of them.

"They are _not_ working with the Decepticons, you _must_ understand that. They are protecting each other and that's all. They have not turned against you and they are not working with your enemies. I'm not excusing what they've done, nor am I suggesting that they should not suffer some form of punishment, but you need to understand what you're dealing with now." The passenger cut in and the speakers went silent and let him.

"What are you talking about Ironhide? The autobots chased them to that island just like we did, and I don't remember anyone there pulling any punches." The stereo was distinctly irritated when it responded.

"Then you remember incorrectly Will. Bumblebee did not injure a single person during that battle, and he easily could have. We chased them because at that time there was still a chance to stop Megatron from rising again, and that would have made almost any price worth it. That chance is gone now however and we need to focus on what we have. Sam and Bumblebee are both different people now, but they are both still valuable to us. They are also extremely valuable to Section 7 and the Decepticons." The truck seemed to take a minute to relax and let the anger seep from its voice.

"They share a bond now; one that makes them both extremely valuable allies as well as very dangerous ones. They have bound themselves together through their sparks, a joining that cannot be separated. They will kill for each other, die for each other and fight anyone that threatens them. _That_ is why they did what they did. Their alliance with the Decepticons was one of convenience only. Sam was dying; Bumblebee had to do everything he could to save him. If your wife was dying Captain Lennox, and your enemies had a way to save her, you could choose whether to take that or not. You could let your wife die, or you could betray your friends to save her. For Bumblebee there is no choice. The bond will not let them do anything to endanger the spark they have mated with." There was a silence as though the truck was waiting for some sign of understanding from either the phone or the passenger, but none was forthcoming.

"It is a love that goes beyond the body, beyond what a human could understand without experiencing it." The face of the truck's passenger went decidedly pale, and his voice was somewhat disturbed when he spoke.

"You mean Sam and Bumblebee had _sex_? That they're acting insane because they're into each other?" The engine revved with a warning tone that also carried a hint of anger to it.

"A bond usually implies a physical relationship yes, but it is not necessary. A spark bond is a binding of what you'd call 'souls' not of the physical." The paleness in the man's face didn't go away.

"That's just wrong though Ironhide. Sam's just a kid, Bumblebee can't take advantage of him like that, he's screwing up his whole life because of this bond. Not to mention that Bumblebee's a giant robot." The engine roared in a surge of anger that made the passenger slam his hands over his ears.

"Do not presume to judge them human. What they have done is probably braver than anything you will achieve in your existence. They have given themselves completely over to someone else, given that person power over their very thoughts. This is a decision that is made for life; there is no backing out of it. Bumblebee has sworn to be Sam's protector, their bonding will make it more than just a vow, it will make it impossible for him to do otherwise. That is why we have a problem." The still slightly uncomfortable looking passenger opened his mouth to reply but the voice from the phone cut off any response.

"Gentlemen, can we get back to the point at hand please. Ironhide, you say they bonded, ok, but didn't Sam give up his spark in order to bring back Megatron? I thought that was the point, that the spark was killing him and he had to get rid of it." The truck took a sharp turn off the highway, the violence of it throwing the occupant around perhaps a little more than was strictly necessary.

"Yes. Sam may have lost his spark, but we don't know for sure what the effect of that was. The scans Ratchet took of him showed that the spark energy had already altered substantial parts of his brain. The bond may still exist between them, though the physical aspect of it would have faded." A nauseous expression crossed the man's face and the truck growled again in warning.

"But regardless of what effect it's had on Sam, whether he still feels the bond or not, Bumblebee will still feel it. That hasn't changed." The man on the phone seemed to get it first, his voice now tinged with worry.

"Then Sam's parents aren't the point at all. They're not trying to get _Sam_ to do what they want, they're after Bumblebee." The passenger got it then too, his face pale for a new reason.

"You're telling me they speak to Sam and say 'destroy Beijing or your parents get it' and…" The voice from the speakers was even more grave as it cut him off.

"Bumblebee would do it without hesitation, yes. If Section 7 controls Sam they control Bumblebee. Sam wouldn't even have to ask it. If Section 7 said they were going to kill his parents unless the President was murdered, Bumblebee would do it. His bond wouldn't let him refuse; he cannot do anything that would harm his mate. That is why spark binding is not something entered into lightly, and there have been none since the war began. It is simply too much of a liability and only ends up causing pain." The seconds ticked by like minutes as the silence settled in, neither the truck nor its passenger quite sure what to do or say. A murmur on the other end of the line was followed by a click and a woman's voice came through clearly.

"Will, it's Maggie here, I've been following along. Keller had to step out for, well let's say _legal_ reasons. I suspect someone higher up might be keen to let things play out and see how things go before they try and take any action. Needless to say some of us would rather try and take action if we can. I'm going to task a half dozen more birds over you for Ironhide to monitor the feeds from. I'll lock out their systems for the next 24 hours with a delta encryption sequence and make it look like a systems failure. Ironhide should be able to hack that easily enough, but it should stop Section 7 for at least several hours. You two focus on finding Sam and Bumblebee alright? We'll do everything we can to track down the Witwicky's. I'm going to send out a request through all the agencies I can to try and stir things up and maybe make things a little harder for Section 7 to operate. Time's running out and anything we can do to stop them from getting what they want is a risk well taken. The agents who checked out the Witwicky house said it looked like they'd been gone for days. They had years and years to pour over every inch of Megatron, and I'm not willing to bet on whether they know how to go about contacting Bumblebee or not." The man picked the phone up again, pressing the speakerphone button and holding it up to his ear.

"We're on it Maggie believe me. I don't think we've stopped for more than a few minutes for a shower and shave every day. I'll be glad when I can sleep in a bed rather than a seat again. You guys just be careful over there alright? Section 7 must be planning something big if they're doing all of this, and that makes me worried about what they know that we don't." There was a light chuckle from the handset and a smile was evident in the voice.

"Don't worry Will. I always work on the assumption that the other guy knows more than me. That way I make sure I cover all my bases and don't get sloppy." There was no answering amusement in the man's voice when he responded.

"I know you won't Maggie. Look, I hate to ask, but my wife and kid…" The answer was instantaneous.

"Keller had agents out there thirty minutes after we found out about Sam's parents. They've been moved to a military base where they'll stay till this is all over." The passenger let out a breath with a sigh.

"Tell him thanks for me. Keep in touch." The line clicked then disconnected, the phone tossed carelessly onto the passenger's seat. The mood in the cabin seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden, the passenger staring out the window as they wound their way over a mountain pass. In the distance the blue of the ocean appeared from behind a ridgeline.

"Is what we need to do here going to be a problem for you Will?" It was said gruffly, with an 'I only care because I don't want to have to pull over to drop you off' tone, but nevertheless, beneath it there was something that said the truck wanted the man to be alright.

"I just, well I'm an old fashioned kinda guy Ironhide, and the army, well that's not exactly the place to learn tolerance for these kinds of things. You're telling me you think it's perfectly alright for Sam and Bumblebee to be together? That you guys don't care that they're both men? Well as much as you seem to be anyway." A thoughtful sound came from the speakers, almost a soft noise of understanding.

"You are bound by your biological roots Will. I read all about this on the internet. It is a puzzling situation for me, since we don't reproduce the same way as humans. For us the act of intimacy is purely about wanting to be with someone who you wish to spend your life with. Perhaps you could clear something up for me." The look on the man's face clearly showed that he expected he was walking into a trap, but he hesitantly nodded his head anyway.

"Yeah ok." Another soft and thoughtful hum was emitted.

"Why do people still continue to live by an antiquated moral code? Your society has clearly evolved since those times. I can see that certain aspects were there because without them fledgling human society might have crumbled. The concept of homosexuality being 'wrong' or a sin was necessary to prevent disease and because populations were so low every child was needed to ensure the survival of the species. Now however your planet is over taxed by your numbers, and your medicine and hygiene have reached a level whereby it is no more likely for a man to catch something from another man than from a woman. So why then do you persist in this belief?" A frustrated noise came from the mouth of the passenger and hands were thrown up into the air.

"Because it's wrong Ironhide. We evolved to have sex with a woman, that's the way our biology works, male and female. You can't just go against it when it's convenient." The response from the truck was, surprisingly, a chuckle.

"Ah, I see, so religion isn't your choice of discrimination, it's science. Humanity's capacity to ignore its own logic is a quirk that never gets dull for me. You say that your biology demands that you sleep with a woman. If you want to be absolutely strict about it, your biology actually only requires that you have sex in order to procreate. Tell me Captain Lennox, does that mean you have had sex only the few times you and your wife were trying to conceive?" The man frowned.

"Of course not." A soft 'ah' came from the stereo.

"I see. But then every time you _have_ had sex in your life you _were_ trying to procreate though correct? That is after all the sole purpose of mating in a biological sense." The passenger leant forward to speak but the seatbelts pulled tight and the stereo increased in volume to override him.

"Mankind has advanced so far, and yet in some respects you haven't come far at all. In my travels I have met species that had anywhere from no genders to five. Outside of reproduction there is no biological imperative to only mate with females Captain, and somehow I'm disappointed that you view the world so narrowly. Especially having met a race of sentient robots and discovering there is other life out there." The seatbelts loosened so the man could move again and he cast a slightly irritated glance at the dashboard.

"Tell me Will, if I were to have a relationship with Optimus Prime would that offend your biology?" Several expressions warred across the pale face before he opened his mouth to speak.

"I guess so. I mean you're both men." A sigh came from the vehicle.

"Interesting that we are not biological though, nor do we have a gender in the same sense as you." There was a brief pause and then the voice changed, coming out as a seductive female purr.

"Would it help you if I were to speak like this?" Alarm flitted through the man's eyes.

"I could just as easily converse with you in this voice as I could the one you've come to know. It is simply a synthesised recreation of several voices we intercepted while coming to your planet. Had I chosen different samples I could have sounded like anyone using a cell phone at the time, or a movie or television personality. And as for our equivalent to sex, every autobot can connect to any other; some are more compatible than others due to things like shape, but there is only minor difference between our basic anatomies. The fact that those of us you have met more closely resemble male than female is merely coincidence. There were once cybertronians who could resemble anything from a tree to a cube with wheels." The female voice was gone then, the rough male voice returning, a hint of steel beneath it.

"I understand that the prejudices you feel are something you're not likely to get over Will, but I also want you to understand something as well. Bumblebee and Sam are going to have to go through a lot now that they have been bonded. They are going to have people and organisations of all different types trying to use them for their own ends. They are each going to suffer and feel things you will never understand, and when Sam eventually dies, part of Bumblebee will die with him. It is a connection that, for all you 'biological correctness', you will never feel. I have seen enough conflict in my time to not want to see it unnecessarily, and I won't let you cause them pain or somehow diminish the time they have together due to your beliefs." The voice got harder again as the truck turned onto yet another road, the coast slowly getting larger in the windscreen, following the signs that pointed the way to their next destination.

"I like you Will, you're a good soldier and you like to do what you feel is right, I can understand and admire that in a fellow warrior. But let me be perfectly clear with you. A soldier needs to look out for those in his squad, you of all people should understand that. And if you do anything that could harm or threaten either Bumblebee or Sam, I won't hesitate to crush you like a bug if I have to." It took a second for the words to fade from the cabin and then the rich sound of laughter filled it instead.

"Alright Ironhide. I think we can respect the fact that you're protective of them. And regardless of what I think of their choices, Sam and Bumblebee saved my ass just like they saved yours, and I'd never let anyone fall into the hands of an organisation like Section 7. Not even Megatron deserves that fate." A snort came out of the truck.

"Well I'd need to think about that, but I'm glad we understand each other Will. I'd really rather not have to squish you. It'd take forever to get your organs out of my foot components."

_Fin_


	4. Chapter 4

**Ignition**

_Ok, so I know I say it every couple of chapters, but not really happy with this chapter :) Nevertheless I post it anyway for your perusal and enjoyment!_

_Thanks to DeMarcos, AniCoolgirl, Devious Ava, Nkundra… Ummm… that's all I can think of at the moment… Oh – Neku and Lola Hard as well!!!_

_Sorry, but I can't think who else I might have forgotten :) And of course Dania – who didn't have time to write a review but who took the time to send me an email so I'd know she was alive and well :D_

_Ok, long chapter people, with a LOT of both character and story progression. I think maybe I over reached in this chapter and that's why I'm not 100 satisfied with it._

_But as long as you guys like it that's what matters! shakes fist LIKE IT:)_

**Chapter 4**

Sam couldn't help smiling around at the people that surrounded him on all sides, overflowing from underneath the metal roofed shelter out onto the grass beyond. It was rapidly getting dark outside, the day overcast and grey, the black clouds hanging low and menacing in the sky above, the waves tossed into jagged peaks by the wind. Nevertheless it was hot, the tropical location never really that cool to begin with, the inclement rain adding a sweltering humidity that seemed to leach the sweat from ones pores. His long sleeved shirt was most definitely an oddity in their group, the polo tops and boob tubes that covered those who were either too shy, or not yet hot enough, to pull them off making him stand out like a three piece suit at a rave.

No one commented on it. By now everyone had accepted the story that he'd been scarred in an accident, thankfully no one remembering his initial few days well enough to recollect that he'd worn short sleeved shirts before. It became just another thing that was accepted in the same way as Paul's fetish for sequined belts, or Elizabeth's birth mark that looked like a hickey on the side of her neck. There'd been no recrimination or insults when he'd hesitantly made up the story of a house fire, no requests of 'can we see them?'. It was taking some getting used to, but over the weeks they'd been here it had slowly happened, and somehow Sam had found himself a member of this group of friends. Most of them were regulars of the café he worked at, the cheap food and coffee a Mecca for the town's youth. The majority of the restaurants and bars were aimed too much at the tourists, the prices set accordingly to cater to wealthy foreigners who expected to pay top dollar, and wouldn't settle for anything less.

They were the crowds rapidly evacuating the beach now, as the life guards gathered up the flapping red and yellow flags that marked the area it was safe for people to swim. Until the storm passed there would be very little chance to enjoy the water, though some of the locals were braving the increasing swells to surf or body board. Towels were hurriedly rolled up and stuffed in backpacks and bags as the breeze threatened to take them, along with the umbrellas that had previously been providing shade. Further down the curve of sand, hotel staff could be seen moving back and forth, stacking the deck chairs that lined the beach where the resort touched it, a tractor digging up the sand as it hurriedly towed several catamarans up out of the water, where they were rapidly stripped of their sails and then chained to a concrete wall.

Along the park in each direction, trees and plants shivered at the touch of the wind, the sound and movement almost like eager sighs, waiting to feel the cold, fat drops of liquid that would soon rain down on their foliage, saturating the ground in a way that no sprinkler system could quite duplicate. The water park had been turned off not long after midday when the storm warning had been broadcast, the fountains and slides still wet in the humidity, the pools covered over with thick covers and nets.

There was still activity however, along the beachfront strip, shops, bars and restaurants were struggling to handle the increased capacity, as those displaced from their planned day of sunbaking instead tried to get a first class seat to watch the coming show. Most wouldn't leave until after midnight now, settling in for a night of thunder, booze and laughter. Ben had been almost desperate when Sam's shift had ended, pleading with him along with the other staff to work another one, offering them an extra half again what they would normally have earned for the hours. Two of them had accepted. He'd politely declined. The offer to hang out with his new friends and watch a tropical storm had been something he couldn't pass up, a show that they promised him would be something not to miss.

It was still unusual for him, that with Christmas only weeks away, it was getting hotter rather than colder. The concept of a cold Christmas as alien here as he and Bumblebee were. He hadn't been game to ask his new friends how they all handled it, or whether they'd even seen snow before. He had a feeling most hadn't and he didn't want to risk the conversation turning too much towards his past. There was also the chance someone might want to know why he still hadn't moved on; why a backpacker out to see the country had now been here for weeks, without even a mention or thought as to where he was going or when. He'd just got comfortable with them, not constantly looking over his shoulder or wondering when something horrible was going to be sprung on him. He didn't want to mess that up.

He'd planned to go of course, had meant to only be here a couple of weeks tops, certain that people were looking for them and that they were still too close to where Starscream had left them. B had agreed and suggested time and again that they depart, but Sam had been reluctant, feeling that he'd found a little bit of something that he'd left behind when they fled. So his mate had relented, he'd never made it an order, never implied that he would be unhappy if they'd stayed, merely suggested it when the conversation came up and then left the decision in Sam's hands. It had touched him that B wouldn't force the decision on him and demand that they go. And so they'd stayed, living in the dead end street between the park and storm water runoff drain, Sam keeping his few belongings in a locker near the waterfront.

Luckily, being a beachside community there was no shortage of showers and Laundromats, nor cheap food. He spent his days working or walking, hanging out with new friends or going for a drive, after which he would spend his nights cradled in Bumblebee's soft leather interior, soothed to sleep by a changing mix of songs and perfectly adjusted climate control. Each night was yet another experience in closeness between them, their bond tightening as they spent more and more time in each other's company. Eventually Sam could no longer picture himself _not_ sleeping in Bumblebee's embrace, safe, and protected with a zeal and dedication that would never be surpassed. Memories of his room and bed at home became little more than hazy recollections, the same way he remembered most of his time before B. The thoughts were still there, but they were faded and dull, the faces and places slightly out of focus as though they'd been turned from vibrant colour to black and white in his mind. He still loved his parents, still missed Mikaela, wondered how Miles was doing. He sometimes dreamt of them; brief interludes to dreams of Bumblebee, that left him remembering only that he _had_ dreamed and not what it was about. But shadowing it all was the incredible hum of his bond with the Autobot that surrounded him, as he fell asleep every night, his blood and mind resonating at the sensation.

Even thinking about it sent a deliciously electric pulse through the metal plates that layered his spine, the buzz causing him to shiver in the sticky afternoon heat. It was something he was still getting used to, the combination of metal and organic feelings that sometimes struck him as more and more of his systems were infiltrated by the microscopic machines the allspark had set loose inside of him. They were growing at an enormous rate, according to B's latest scans, moving like a ravenous swarm of ants that spread just as quickly. Thankfully there had been relatively few major external changes since the incident with his back, the silver veins continuing along his left forearm and down his left side, where they now finished just above his pants line and spread thin tendrils across his abdomen. Around his neck a thin chain of plates an inch across had grown from his spine, circling the base of his throat like a choker and covering the healed wound that had allowed the allspark entry to his body. They could be seen above his shirt, but thankfully looked no stranger that any piece of spiky black metallic jewellery someone might wear, and had garnered little more than one off looks. They shone when the light hit them, with the same metallic, yet slightly unearthly look that B did when he was transformed, and his bonded had evidently found them most appealing. Bumblebee's delight in stroking up and down his spine had now extended to gentle touches around his throat, the large fingers carefully yet demandingly tilting his head back so the large digit could caress the plates all the way around.

The memory made him shiver again and someone gently nudged him in the side with an elbow.

"Hey man, you ok?" He blinked to bring himself back to the present before smiling at the girl who'd poked him, brown bushy hair and thin wire frame glasses somehow managing to make her look as though she was both a rebel and a student at the same time.

"Yeah Carla I'm fine." She handed him a bottle of water that practically poured condensation onto the ground, the esky full of ice now reduced to chilled water with drinks floating in it.

"Well watch yourself. It's easy to get dehydrated in this weather. Your body thinks it's going to be cool cos of the clouds, but all they do is make it _reeeeally_ muggy." He tilted his head back and took a long swallow from the bottle, feeling the cool liquid slide down the back of his throat with a slight relaxation of his shoulders. He let out a sigh when he stopped for a breath, the sound abruptly lost amidst the thunderous roar that shattered the peaceful beach, the sound rumbling its way down from the sky until even the air in his chest felt the vibration. He smiled as several car alarms promptly went off up and down the avenue that stretched behind them, meeting Carla's excited blue eyes as the sounds of cheers drowned out the last vestiges of the first thunderclap. Around him, teenagers and adults who he'd come to know over the last few months suddenly reverted to children, as they laughed and hooted at the oncoming clouds. Patrons in the restaurants and bars stood up and saluted the storm with their drinks, giving a hearty cheer that joined those of the groups in the park, as the first raindrops smashed down on them with a ferocity that seemed determined to literally wash the land away.

The iron roof of the barbeque pergola resounded like a gong with every drop that fell, the noise loud and overwhelming, drowning out any conversation and meaningful communication. The wind negated any shelter they got from the building at any rate, the wind gusting the cool drops inside and wetting everything and everyone that hadn't already been drenched in the downpour. He could see Paul standing triumphantly out in the rain, long bleach blonde hair whipped into a frenzy, rain drenching the blue singlet and board shorts he was wearing, face turned upwards almost in supplication to some unknown deity. Several of the girls were squealing, somewhere between panic and delight as their clothes were drenched, the brightly coloured tops sticking to skin as though stuck with glue, towels or jackets hastily thrown over chests with laughing embarrassment. Beside him, Carla rolled her eyes with amusement, the outline of a bikini clearly evident beneath the loose top she wore, the words 'Are you ready for this?' ironically scrawled across the breasts. She noticed his stare and they both laughed, though neither could hear the other over the noise.

Another burst of thunder pounded into their ears from seemingly directly above, the windows of the shops and cafes behind vibrating in their frames. It was still technically an hour or two until sunset, but with the mountain range in the distance and the darkness of the clouds, twilight was already well underway now. He watched as the fairy lights bravely came on up and down the park, the lines leaping and twisting in the wind as though unseen devils were trying to use them as jumping ropes. A man wearing a yellow council raincoat trudged past the shelter towards the beach, arm raised to shield his eyes from the pelting droplets, and Sam watched as he switched off the gas that would normally have lit the tiki torches. He stopped as he was coming back, grabbing Paul's arm and shouting something next to his ear. Sam met his friends eyes, a silent question, barely able to understand the vastly over exaggerated lip movements the blonde was making. Carla had to translate for him, cupping a hand around his ear and shouting over the din.

"They're upgrading the storm. The council is asking everyone to clear the beach. Severe lightning is expected." He nodded to show her he'd understood, tossing his now empty water bottle into a trashcan nearby. Paul came round the outside of the structure, waving them towards the road. Even with the dim glow of the sun and the lights on everywhere, it was difficult to make out more than vague shapes beyond a few feet. The shops across the road were reduced to bright outlines in his vision. Sam stepped out into the storm with a sense of both excitement and fear at the ferocity of the display before him, barely able to make out the tall palm trees bending and tossing against the horizon. Looking back on it, he realised there was an ominous tone to the entire spectacle that probably should have told him something was going to go wrong, but as it was, the safety of a pub seemed a better choice than the minimal shelter offered by the tin roofed pergola. Others were following the same logic, another group of people already across the road, standing in front of the blazing interior of the old stone building, waving at them to follow. It happened so quickly then, the shattering of the calm little life he'd built for himself, not ruined by Decepticons or battles or the Army, but by a simple act of friendship. They'd just been about to step off the footpath to make the final run to the door, then Paul had leapt onto his back.

It was a playful half tackle that had been designed simply so the other boy could ride piggy back in a joking fashion, the kind of thing that wouldn't faze most guys, especially when messing around in the rain. It wasn't until a wet chest pressed against his spine through two equally wet layers of clothes that the true impact of what was happening hit him. Two powerful thoughts assaulted him as he stumbled under the sudden weight; the first was the knowledge that the thin material would provide no barrier to disguise the obvious metallic plates that now armoured his spine. The second was a sense of revulsion and wrongness so powerful that it almost made him vomit. His body rebelled at the foreign touch pressing against it in such an intimate position and he panicked. He could feel the moment the form on his back stiffened at the touch of the interlocking metal, the two arms thrown over his shoulders sliding slightly across the ring the circled his throat. A charge suddenly ran through him, almost like the jolts he'd experienced when he and Bumblebee had sex, but different somehow. In the darkening evening the electric blue flash was immediately obvious, and had it not been for the sudden disappearance of Paul's weight from his back, he might have put it down to a bolt of lightning. Someone cried out, though who he couldn't tell, the wet splatter of the rain against the road joined by the thud and splash of a large body slamming into the grass.

Beside him he could see Carla's eyes open wide, staring at him from between matted and windblown hair with a look of something between surprise and fear. He turned around slowly, taking in the faces of those surrounding him and the slumped form lying still on the grass. From the collar right down to the board shorts, Paul's clothing was seared straight through, the singlet resembling a vest now as it hung open, revealing darkly tanned skin underneath. Overlapping triangular burns pierced the skin as well, like some sort of mechanical centipede had latched on and burnt him before leaving to track down better game. No blood welled up from them, the wounds cauterised by the heat that had created them, the smell of burning meat able to be made out even in the pouring rain. His own shirt slapped wetly against his sides in the wind, dangling loosely from his shoulders in a way that told him his clothes were destroyed in the same manner. A slightly unpleasant crawling sensation inched its way up his spine, strangely making him feel like a dog with its hackles raised at something that has upset it.

For the first time since it had all begun he suddenly wanted the allspark gone from his system, taking in the expressions around him that ranged from shock to horror, and some simply surprised, unsure what had happened. The triangular burns that marked a path from Paul's chin to below his navel were like a line on a map, pointing towards him with an accusing accuracy. One of the girls, Becca he thought, was crouched near the still head, fingers carefully reaching out to press against undamaged flesh near the side of the other boy's throat, trying to feel for a sign of life. Sam prayed desperately that there was one, relieved when the girl's voice announced that there was a pulse and demanding that someone call an ambulance. He wanted to stay and make sure everything was going to be alright, make sure that the friend he had apparently just injured so badly was going to be ok, but he knew he had to leave. His safe little haven wouldn't be safe anymore, not once word of this got out. There'd be questions, interviews, and enough people must have seen his back to know that whatever had happened had been because of him.

"Sam? What…?" It was Carla, taking a very small, very hesitant step towards him, arm raised slightly to point at the ragged shirt that clung to him. He looked down, seeing the faint glow that seemed to come through it and swiftly tore the remaining shreds of fabric off.

The intricate web of silver veins glowed softly with a faint light in the encroaching blackness, making his skin look that much darker by comparison and turning him into a silhouette, highlighted with liquid mercury. They trailed across his stomach and up over his side and chest to his neck. At least they had earlier. They still lazily crossed his stomach and ran up his side, but at his collar bone they were stopped. Glistening black metal ridges had extended from the collar around his neck, layered armour plates following the crest of his collarbone out to his shoulders then back in along the top of his trapezius until the rejoined the circlet at his throat. His hands automatically sought out the skin of his shoulders, feeling another line on each side running down to the curve of his spine, his trapezius muscles surrounded on each side in black metal plates, like the outline of a kite on his back. He saw the fear in Carla's eyes and desperately didn't want her to stare at him as though she expected him to suddenly leap at her and kill her.

"I…" His mouth tried to say it, tried to tell her he was sorry, or thank her for her friendship, something that would show that he was still the same guy. But he could hear a distant siren even through the rain, noticed the increasing number of people that were coming outside across the road, to take in the wet group of kids standing there. He knew he needed to leave, and quickly. He didn't fancy getting arrested, and he didn't want to risk Bumblebee being seen while mounting a rescue. He knew his agony must be showing in his eyes, as he looked from the small group in front of him to the empty blackness he would soon be fleeing into behind.

He thought he saw a flash of sympathy from the blue eyes in front of him, as though the girl had understood that he hadn't meant to do it, would never dream of consciously hurting another human being. She seemed as though she might have said something else, asked him to stay perhaps, or warned him to flee? He didn't know and he couldn't wait around to find out, each second he delayed only bringing police and ambulance closer along with more witnesses nearby. He kept his gaze locked on her as he took his first step back, saw understanding cross her face as she grasped that he had to go, leaving behind the friends he'd made, leaving the beach and the surf, a step away from innocence and back towards responsibility.

He didn't realise they'd been that close to the kerb, and when his foot slipped on the gutter it took him a second to understand exactly what was going on. He hit the hard asphalt of the road with a noise somewhere between a metallic thud and a crunch, the ridges of his spine and shoulders impacting with the ground. He heard the distant sound of Carla screaming his name, even fear of his appearance overridden by concern for a fellow person as he became aware of the car bearing down on him. Two bright points of light filled his eyes, the squeal of breaks coming far too late on the water covered ground. He threw an arm over his head and waited for the blow to fall.

He felt no pain as the sound of a smash echoed strangely around him, the sound of breaking glass and compacting metal causing an eerie vibration that seemed to tremble through the air. Small impacts thudded somewhere to either side of him in a short sharp pattern that sounded like it had started raining debris, and then, seemingly much too fast it was over.

He opened his eyes in almost a comically hesitant manner. As though by refusing to look around and acknowledge the reality of the world you could somehow avoid facing the consequences. Darkness was all that he could see at first, a deep darkness that reminded him of unconsciousness, without even a hint of light to alleviate it. For an instant he thought that he had died, wondered if there was a heaven and hell, or whether he would simply spend eternity floating in the terrible dark. Then he became aware of the dampness of his shorts, and the water under his hand, slowly turning his head to look around him. A dark crescent arched above and to each side of him, enclosing him in a shape that vaguely looked like a bent surfboard, wrapped around him to each side and rising to a curved point above him. He could see Carla standing dead still as she stared at him, the other girl, Becca, crouched over Paul's form with a hand over her mouth. A couple more stood just as still and eerily silent, while the remainder fled into the darkness.

Shock slowly made its way into his system then, his mind replaying the brilliance of the headlights and the screaming of the tyres as though he really had died and this was all just a brief second before death. His hands shook as he lifted them in front of him, noticing that the silver trails had now made it to his left hand, weaving their way down and over each finger and across his palm.

He tightly squeezed it into a fist, holding it pressed against his stomach and squeezing his eyes shut in an effort to compose himself. The sirens were getting closer however, and so he forced himself to gradually stand up, stepping out from underneath the shape that surrounded him.

More and more people were piling out of the doors that lined the street nearby, the sounds of their chatter even reaching him over the rain that poured down. Their shadowed eyes were unable to be made out, standing in front of the brightly lit interiors, but there was little doubt in his mind that they were all focused on him. He turned to find out what had happened to the car and swallowed hard at the sight.

All that remained was a mangled wreck, the coffin like structure that had sheltered him had collected the car almost dead on centre. The headlights wrapped around the sides of it in an almost organic embrace, as though the car were trying to bend and peer around the edge in order to see what was inside. The engine block had evidently been forced back and up, the hood buckled and bent, the windscreen shattered into a fractured opaque pane that only gave the barest hint of the interior. He could make out the white form of the airbags deployed, but whether the driver was alive or dead he couldn't determine.

He stretched out his hand towards the black metal cocoon that had saved him, taking in the perfectly flat and uniform texture, as though it had been forged and poured on the spot, its surface free of any imperfection or indication of tools. As soon as his hand touched it however, it promptly began to disappear, the whole thing disintegrating as though it was made from tiny grains of black sand, held together by some invisible binding that he had disturbed with his hand. Within seconds the entire thing had dissipated in the wind, gone, like blowing on a handful of flour. It left the car shaped like a misshapen Y from the collision, the grille and hood crushed straight down the middle. The only sign that it had ever existed was a semicircular slice that had neatly pierced the asphalt of the roadway, as though it had somehow anchored itself straight through to the bedrock.

Another squeal of tyres echoed up the rain drenched road, bouncing off the buildings and causing him to spin around in fright, his heart still pounding from only seconds ago. At the next intersection the source was revealed to be Bumblebee, sliding sideways down the slick black tarmac as he fishtailed wildly out of the main street leading into town, righting himself a second later and tearing towards him. There was a tone of panic that filled his bond mate's engine, a frantic and slightly uneven revving that set his teeth on edge and his bond to pulsing.

The yellow and black form of his autobot glistened in downpour, rivulets of water streaming off his sides as he braked and swerved, swinging his tail end out so he ended up stopped practically right next to Sam. It was a sight that set his heart pounding for a different reason, realising that the fear that drove his mate to these exertions was concern over him. A desire he felt equally as strongly in return. The driver's door flew open in the face of his musings, the empty interior only further adding to the perils of their situation.

"Come on Sam. We have to go." It was an obvious statement, something he'd known even before the incident with the other car, yet to hear it coming from B in such an urgent voice seemed to suddenly make it actually real. His eyes flickered from the open door in front of him to the small group of his former friends that were still nearby, noticing the small twitch that went through Paul's body before his brown eyes latched on to Carla's blue. He saw the brief comprehension as he'd seen it moments ago, the understanding that he had to leave and that he was sorry for that. Her expression reflected no doubt the same thing his did. They both knew he would never be back.

"Bye." It seemed like an incredibly inadequate way to say goodbye, a single word that failed to adequately explain his thanks for the respite his time in this town had given him. It seemed all his goodbyes were brief, never able to properly convey what he needed to.

"_Now_ Sam!" This time it was an order, and his body didn't hesitate to obey, taking two leaping steps and diving through the open door into the dimly lit cabin. He'd barely even hit the seat before B was off again, tyres spinning in the water briefly before catching again on the ground, seatbelts flying around him and firmly webbing him in place. His eyes flew up to the rear vision mirror as they left the scene of the accident behind, the little island of people and light looking like an island amidst the storm's ongoing fury. It became harder and harder to make out anything through the rain as they drew further away, but the lightning arrived then, a brilliant flash briefly lighting up the area. It was less than a second of illumination but it was enough, allowing him to make out the two girls, both staring after him as they were lost again to the blackness, blue and red strobes preceding the ambulance out of the side street not far from them. He kept his eyes trained on that spot as long as possible, staring at the indistinct blackness as moisture ran down his front and sides, hair sticking wetly to his neck.

"I'm sorry we have to leave Sam." The sincerity and regret he heard in B's voice were echoed in his own heart, as even the lights from the ambulance and pub were finally lost from sight. His eyes flicked away from the mirror, glancing out the window just in time to watch the last of the brightly lit shopfronts flash past beside them. The lively and crowded strip that had been his entire life for the last few months was swiftly swallowed up by the stormy darkness in their wake, gone with a finality and completeness that almost made him wonder if any of it had even happened at all.

The interior of the car was silent, as the streetlamps of the suburban neighbourhoods were left behind them a few short minutes later, leaving them alone together on the road with only the rain, wind and lightning for companions. Somewhere above and ahead of them the thunder peeled out its vengeful cry, a booming herald that warned all of their passage, a yellow and black steed with rider, sowing chaos and pain wherever they tread. He didn't respond to Bumblebee's apology, barely noticing as the AC heated to try and dry him off. He didn't want to think anymore at that moment, didn't want to feel.

Because when he did it was going to hurt, and all the metal plates in the world weren't going to be able to keep it out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Located in the sweet spot at 35,786km above the earth's surface, locked into a geosynchronous orbit, the KLD-327 emissions monitoring satellite was not long from the event that would mark the end of its relatively insignificant life. The fuel reserves in its tanks were down to the last precious ounces, enough for a few final station keeping corrections over the next couple of months before the satellite would be decommissioned, and allowed to surrender itself to gravity and plummet into the atmosphere. It was an end for which KLD-327 had been designed, and the limited onboard processing capacity of its ten year old computers was capable neither of comprehending its impending destruction, nor preventing it if it had. Instead it carried out its duties with the same single minded attentiveness that marked most machines, accumulating data and waiting to transmit that back to earth.

Surrounding it on all sides, its brothers and sisters performed their own duties, some monitoring temperature, some monitoring communications, and others monitoring the monitors.

Approximately two degrees north on the orbital plane, KLD-393, a slightly newer yet equally as outmoded sibling, transmitted a weather warning signal, advising severe thunderstorms for a region of far north Queensland on the continent below them. Huge thunderclouds were already crossing the coastline, causing record seas and more expected to come. 327 redirected its scans towards the cloud banks as per its programming, observing the electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere for further study by scientists on the ground. The data gathered by its ten year old cameras would most likely be relegated to storage, superseded by its newer and more powerful cousins that patrolled the skies above North America and Europe. It was not equipped for carrying out any other sort of study however, and was so close to the end of its working life that it would have been neither worthwhile nor cost effective to send a space mission to upgrade it. So its cameras calmly went about collecting the data that was required, imaging and scanning the area as bright flashes lit up the clouds below.

It came as somewhat of a surprise when an enquiry was directed towards it from somewhere below, its transceiver taking a second to power on from its dormant state in order to request the appropriate codes before proceeding. Security codes were swiftly checked and verified, beginning transmission of the packets of data down to the terminal identified as "IONIDE".

A huge flash lit up the graphs in its databanks, spiking far higher than the storm was capable of producing, though the scans from the cameras showed no visible change. The disturbance was logged, and obligingly sent down to the one who requested it, "IONIDE" receiving the data and disconnecting with a brief thanks that 327 was incapable of understanding.

It was programmed only to receive and send, a task that had always been satisfying enough, simply knowing one had done as it was required to. It was a machine type of accomplishment, that bore no real similarity to the emotion human's would have attached to it. It had done the job since the day it came online, it would do it until the day it ceased to function. That was all it knew.

So when two more transmissions came in only minutes later, requesting the same data it had just transmitted, 327 dutifully checked their codes as it always did, duplicated the information, and then resent it.

_Fin_


	5. Chapter 5

**Ignition**

_Guess what… I'm not dead. Ok so I'm sure some people thought I was (or at least thought the story was) but no, I'm very much alive here :)_

_First I got sick (god damn diseases!) then I went away for a family 'do', then work got really busy, then I got sick again!!! How's that for a run of bad luck! Not only that, but my muse had somehow run off… I mean honestly, you take the ankle chain off for 1 minute and they leap out an open window and make for the airport! That's the last time I show any leniency!_

_On the plus side, DANIA gave me some absolutely FANTASTIC inspiration by Beta-ing the half finished chapter for me, which I then placed inside a cleverly constructed trap. Muses may be creative, but they're not very smart. One whiff of those inspirational lines and she couldn't help walking right on under the box to read the changes, and then BANG down dropped the box :D_

_Anyway, thank you to the people who emailed/messaged/reviewed to let me know they were waiting on the chapter. One plus of not having had any time to myself is that I'm looking forward to catching up on all the great fics/art etc that have no doubt accumulated in my absence, both here and on the LJ. I'm particularly looking forward to catching up on Keelywolfe's (I think that's how you spell it) "Only Human" series, since I assume there's been a few more chapters added. If you haven't read it, you should (but what am I saying – of course if you're reading this story you'd have read that one too :P since BeexSam isn't a huge fandom… Yet… fingers crossed)_

_Someone asked in an earlier chapter if the town where I set the start of Ignition was an imaginary town or based off an actual place. It's not strictly speaking a single town that is exactly as described; it's an amalgamation of different places I grew up in and have visited. I've broken them down here in case any of you are looking for fantastic vacation spots __:) (or want to look them up on the net to picture what I'm describing)_

_1) Beach: The beach is based off 2 beaches - the eastern beach on Moreton Island (just off Brisbane), which is the ocean facing beach. It has nice surf, and is nothing but beautiful perfect sand stretching for kilometers from one end of the island to the other. It's uninhabited though so obviously it has none of the other features I gave it. It's absolutely pristine though usually, and really quite beautiful. And also Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island, which is full of beach activities and fun and is also a nice sandy beach in the typical U shape of a horseshoe (obviously)._

_2) Foreshore: The foreshore is based off 'The Strand' in Townsville (north Queensland), which is a long continuous park from the breakwater right down all the way along the city centre. It has a water park/running tracks/big trees/fountains etc – everything in the story is pretty much there (with a couple of differences – there aren't really many huge leafy fig type trees, mainly palms). It's really quite beautiful and is a very popular place to get some sun etc. For those who are paying attention, Townsville is also the major port city in northern Queensland, which is where Will & Ironhide landed._

_3) Café Strip/Storm: This was again taken from Horseshoe Bay. It is filled with trendy cafes and restaurants, as well as a backpackers, a resort and a pub (yes a beer swilling, pot bellied middle aged mans dream). It used to be nothing but run down old holiday homes, till they tore them all down to cater to the tourists. If you ever go there – eat at the 'Barefoot Café', it's great, and the whole strip is very pleasant and relaxing. You really feel as though you're isolated from the bigger world. In fact one day while I was there a storm rolled in (not as violent as the one in the story) and events similar to those I described took place – the clearing of the beaches, the 'battening down the hatches'. If you've ever been through a tropical storm (or if you're in america, whatever your equivalent is – probably a phenomenon similar to preparing for a tornado I suppose) you know that when they arrive they hit hard. In the case when I was there, the lifesavers stripped the beaches, the jetski and hire equipment places all dragged their craft out of the water and chained or tied them high up the sand, and everyone crammed into the buildings :) It's very exciting actually!_

_4) Town/People: The town itself was based off Weipa, which is a small (very small) mining town which is pretty much the last point of civilisation as you head north. After Weipa there's pretty much nothing but rainforest and scrub country until Thursday Island. I grew up for a couple of years there (we moved around a lot as Mum worked with a bank) and it's a really cosy little hamlet. If you know the company Comalco, or know what Bauxite is, then you probably know of Weipa. It's one of the largest Bauxite mines in the world. The population is only a few thousand (which admittedly is larger than many small towns I could have based it off) and it's very much an 'everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows everything' town :) I haven't been back since I was young, so no doubt my memories are coloured and it's changed but that's where the inspiration came from._

_5) Tiki Torches: The string of tiki torches along the beach that lit up of an evening is taken from Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. They turn on every night and run for part of the beach in front of the restaurants. They're very pretty and really add to the atmosphere._

_Ok, that's me done :P Pointless rambling is now over._

_Thanks again guys/girls/aliens/things/big ss robots (whoever's reading)._

_Oh, this chapter ended before I was planning to, but Dania and I decided it worked better to break it off there and continue later :) also, it saves you all trying to slog your way through an 8k word chapter instead of a 4.5k one._

**Chapter 5**

"_It was a dark and stormy night…"_

God he hated that quote. From the moment his English teacher had highlighted Edward Bulwer-Lytton's infamous phrase as literary abuse of the English language, he'd wanted to murder the man for its overuse in cheesy B-rated movies and pharmacy romance novels. He'd used it himself a thousand times, even in his short existence, as a corny, faux scary turn of phrase, but for the first time the words seemed all too apt, and dangerously close to the reality of his current situation. Too close for him to find it either amusing or outrageous.

He was perched precariously close to a relatively sheer drop, the wall of stone under his feet plunging down to the rainforest below. It disappeared before ever reaching the ground it had been thrust up from, its base instead swallowed by the arboreal canopy that attempted to mimic the actions of the distant storm-tossed sea, leafy waves churning against the rocks hundreds of feet down. Above, forbidding clouds obscured the stars behind their roiling facades, only occasionally granting him an all too brief glimpse of the moon's brilliant disc, heavy and full in the sky. In those moments it called out to him, bright and pure, and appeared almost within his reach, like a heavenly lighthouse that somehow promised him a safe harbour that no longer existed. Then it was once again consumed by the stormy barrier, and only the faintest hint of the silver rays pierced the surface, bleaching the surrounding landscape into a stark contrast of black and white. Sam felt as though he'd somehow been dropped into a distant, bygone era, when movies were silent and underexposed, creating a dark and flickering panorama that seemed to nurture a primal fear of monsters and the unknown. Colour was a precious commodity in this forbidden place, only briefly returning in sudden strobing flashes that coincided with the lightning and booming thunder overhead, never lasting long enough to take in the entire view. A hint of green leaves here, a flash of angry azure ocean over there; then all of it soaked up again by the encroaching blackness until you almost forgot that the colour and life had even been there to begin with.

Behind him he could feel the presence of his guardian, headlights turned off but engine still running. Sam could feel the tenseness in his partner at his nearness to such a steep and un-survivable drop, ready to transform and grab him at a moments notice should his footing waver even slightly on his dangerous perch. He briefly contemplated giving it a try, just stepping off the edge and trusting his life to fate and Bumblebee's reflexes, but the sudden rev of an engine and a surge of fear in his mind stopped his thoughts of movement as effectively as concrete shoes could have stopped his feet. The command had been unsaid, but he could feel it anyway, the proximity of his bonded like a beacon in his head, a bright pulse of awareness that told him precisely how strongly Bumblebee disapproved of thoughts that would put him anywhere in danger. It was stronger now, much larger and louder as time went on, until he wasn't quite sure what life had been like before he and B had joined, when his head, heart and body had been his and his alone.

It was a part of their bond that was growing stronger everyday, perhaps as a side effect of their binding or even maybe because of his increasing transformation. Bumblebee had said nothing to indicate that he thought there was a problem, but Sam was both blissfully warmed and terrifyingly afraid as their connection increased. On the one hand, the vibration of B's spark was a comforting embrace within his mind, a presence that loved, cherished and enfolded him safely within the autobot's soul. It seemed to promise a life full of only affection, a relationship comprised of closeness and intimacy that few could ever aspire to, let alone experience. He wanted what it promised him. He wanted it with a passion, but that spark was also amazingly strong. Its presence, while initially a comforting warmth in their trials, was growing into an inferno that pressed inwards against him, piercing into his core until it felt as though there wasn't a single atom or thought within his being that was not at the command of his partner. It was a possession so total and complete that he wondered if it was already too late for him to ever stop what was happening. Would B eventually overwhelm him? Until all that was left was a shell that existed only for his bonded? Would he even notice it happening? Or would he just gradually forget about anything that didn't involve his mate, like falling asleep and gradually entering the sandman's demesne? Sam hadn't worked up the courage to ask, hadn't said anything actually, since they'd left the small ocean-side community. So much drama and change was squeezed into several scant minutes of his young life. Automatically, his eyes had found the lights from the cliff top, though at this distance they were little more than a faint glow on the far off coast. The rain smeared them into vague blurs, and made them as difficult to discern in the driving downpour as his own thoughts and future.

Sam let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

The rain was almost cleansing as the rivulets of water slammed harshly onto his face and body, sluicing across his bare torso and board shorts before dripping onto the ground beneath him. It was a primal touch, a collision between man and nature which helped him remember his body as it had been before all this happened. A body of flesh and bone, uninfluenced by technology that was increasingly making him an outcast in any world he tried to insinuate himself. The storm might have been Mother Nature's way of speaking to him, a sympathetic listener that understood how one could have everything they loved torn away. One of her children, already long having been removed from her embrace by technology and narcissism, was about to be taken forever beyond her reach, his heart and soul passing into the care of another, not of her choosing or design, and his body now entrusted to the unnatural maintenance of machines. She quaked in understanding along with her creation, thunder and lightning cracking the heavens in fury at what was being done to him, the cold wind feeling like hands desperately trying to clutch him back to the earth's breasts. Torrents of rain assaulted his body without pause, tears of loss from a world he no longer belonged to, as though the liquid could simply erode the metal away and leave untouched skin behind in its wake.

It wouldn't happen of course; somehow he didn't think he was being covered in any material that would succumb to something as basic and ubiquitous as water. He doubted even Ratchet could remove them from him now without at the very least leaving scars, and that was if he could do it at all. Even then, the metal plates more than likely would end up coming back. Bumblebee said the nano-machines were everywhere within him now, turning his flight from an attempt to avoid his death to a quest to find a way to live. Sometimes Sam thought he could almost feel their presence, especially in the few short hours since he had been forced to flee. Now, it seemed as though the revelation of their existence to other people had somehow made the microscopic robots real to him as well, something that couldn't be ignored any longer. He didn't know if it was actually the machines that he could feel, or if he was just projecting the sensation like a drug addict proclaiming that their skin was 'crawling' with biting insects. Either way, Sam wanted this new perception to leave, so he could go back to pretending they weren't there.

It wasn't anything obvious; there were no voices or conscious thoughts in his head as there sometimes was with Bumblebee. But he could still feel something tapped into his own body, like a passenger riding his thoughts and actions, not really a trail of conscious thought but more like a thin thread of instincts beyond what a human should experience. It was unsettling, and just as the bond had done at first, it made him wonder which thoughts and actions truly originated from Sam Witwicky, and which stemmed from the cellular manipulation of the myriad machines flowing throughout his systems. Bumblebee reassured him that this was not the case, similar to past assurances that the spark bond would not alter his thoughts or feelings beyond loyalty and commitment to his mate. Nevertheless, as though trying to prove that statement a lie, the bond didn't allow him to disbelieve his guardian's words, and the knowledge that perhaps he should have, was cause enough for doubt. Not of the statement or of Bumblebee, that was something the bond could not permit, but doubt at himself and what he was becoming. He'd managed to avoid it while they'd been together at the beach, even when he'd started to change and their relationship had grown, but now, again forced to flee from those he counted as friends, the truth was hard to ignore.

B seemed to understand the difficulties he was having, as he had not questioned when Sam had asked that they stop. He also had not even ventured a comment when Sam stepped out from the comforting sanctuary of B's warm, dry cabin and walked off into the torrential downpour. The knowledge that the autobot could have stopped him with either a word or a door but had allowed him to go was a flash of morbid hope in Sam's dark mood. At least if he would spend the rest of his life as a slave it would be to a permissive master. There was no other choice for him now, the bond was in place, by all accounts unbreakable, the allspark and the nano-machines inside him cementing Bumblebee into every cell of his body as the aborted spark from Megatron had started to do.

There was a thud from beside him and he turned his head to take in the pale, gleaming form of his partner, crouched next to him, head cradled in one large metal hand. His entire world constricted at that moment, blue optics the only colour he could see as he once again drowned in them, the darkness hiding the yellow of Bumblebee's paint but unable to hide the anguish that flared within those glowing orbs. Rain dripped and ran across the slick alien form, a constant stream pouring from one corner of B's eyes until Sam fancied it almost looked like his autobot was crying shining tears. He could feel nothing but sadness over the taught thrum that was their bond, the depth of Bumblebee's pain like an ocean next to his own well.

"Please don't do this Sam." The voice cracked with an electric sounding short, the emotional intensity obviously causing a surge in B's vocal unit.

"Please don't think of us like this. I am trying to understand what this is doing to you, and I apologise if I have been unhelpful, but please don't keep thinking these things. I would never do anything to hurt you." The hand that wasn't holding his guardian's head extended towards him through the rain, tremors wracking the metal with visible shakes as the parts underneath spun and moved in a seemingly uncoordinated pattern. Sam stepped carefully away, knowing what physical contact did to the bond and afraid of what would happen if he dared to touch his mate. The gleaming limb stopped at his movement before slowly withdrawing back to its owner's side, gouging a shallow trough in the mud.

"I know you wouldn't B, not intentionally, but whatever is happening isn't in our control anymore." His eyes fell away from those sorrowful optics and back to the seething tops of the trees below.

"I don't know if I'm me anymore." He doubted the words would have been audible to a human standing a foot away in the wind and rain, but Bumblebee heard them anyway.

"You _are_ Sam. Please believe me. Yes things have changed, but not who you are. Nothing could ever change that." There was earnestness in that voice which was mirrored by the light that was B at the back of his mind, a plaintive request to be believed that Sam had to fight to ignore.

"Regardless of what has happened to us and what changes are being made to your body you are still Sam Witwicky." Sam let out a sigh into the gusting wind and water, the faint puff of air lost instantly in the violence of the storm.

"Am I, B? Am I still who I was? Or am I just a memory of myself that dances on the strings of the allspark and our bond?" It wasn't said in bitterness or anger really, more a sincere question that couldn't be answered, but the feel of Bumblebee within him went instantly from sorrowful hurt to blazing and dangerous anger. There was a crash that shook the ground and he looked over in fright, his autobot just pulling his fist out of the shattered cliff behind him, the darkness of the night casting the scene in shadow that made his partner look like some movie monster intent on doing harm. Twin spots of blue burned from the blackness with a deadly fire that he thought might sear his skin even from twenty feet away, and then the metallic form was over him so quickly he hadn't even seen it move. B hunkered down like a shadowy bird; hands grasping the sharp edge of the cliff beside him as the powerful body sank back to sit on its heels, bright optics staring down at him the only source of light in the dark and stormy night.

"What will it take to convince you of our bond Sam? What do you need so you'll know you are not becoming something you're not? How can I make you understand that what's happening to us is not something to be feared or fought against? That I am just as much a slave to its power as you are?" There was barely controlled fury mixed in with the anger, pain and doubt swirling through it all as well. Sam had never seen Bumblebee mad before, even fighting the decepticons in the last climactic battle over the allspark. It was a frightening thing to behold such a strong being so close to losing his control, and it was made even more terrifying by feeling those emotions first hand, seeing how dangerously close B was to the edge in his mind. He had never stopped to wonder how everything they were going through was affecting the autobot, as Bumblebee had hidden it all from him so well.

"I have tried to understand Sam, to give you the support and comfort you need, but you believe I am controlling you, and that our bond is becoming nothing but a means of forcing my will over yours." It wasn't a question, and even if it had been, Sam knew that any attempt to cover it up would have been as easily detected between them now as Bumblebee's anger was, the bond evolved to the point that even lying was an increasingly difficult proposition. Nevertheless, knowing that his autobot was aware of his doubts was a humiliating revelation, the words that spilled into the night from the bots synthesiser only adding salt to the wound with their harsh and bitter tones.

"Your lack of faith burns and shames me, bonded, to know that those thoughts fill you every time you picture our future." Bitter tears mixed with the rain on his cheeks as B's words cut through him like a knife. He hadn't meant to hurt Bumblebee, he'd never even consider doing anything that would bring him pain. His doubts had been meant to be his own, hopefully hidden forever until it was either too late and the bond consumed him, or he adapted and learned to live with their changes.

"If you truly fear what we have so much would you have me leave you? Would you have me go and never come back?" Sam felt his chest clench tightly at even the suggestion that B would go, knowing that even thinking the thought had caused his guardian pain as well, let alone voicing it.

"Do you need some proof of my devotion and love? Would fulfilling some deed give my love value in your heart Sam? Would that make it worth something to you? More valid?" His face blanched at the suggestion, uncomfortably close to some of his earlier thoughts on it, his puzzlement over how anyone could love someone so unconditionally and without restraint.

"Would you like me to fight a battle in your name like some knight from a fairy tale?" Desperation was creeping into the synthesised tones at each suggestion, as though Bumblebee had run over this list many times before and been unable to choose how best to prove the depth of their bond.

"Shall I kill someone for you Sam? Would that show you what us, what _this_, means to me?" He was sure his heart stopped at those coldly earnest words, both at the thought of B killing anyone, and at the knowledge that the yellow bot was not joking.

"Do you want me to bring you Megatron's body as a trophy? Ratchet? Ironhide? Optimus? Starscream? Would you like to watch as I tear the spark from Prime's chest?" There was no hesitation over any of the names pouring from the vocals, no doubt or unwillingness to carry out any of the suggestions, and Sam felt the sudden urge to be sick.

"Would you rather be ruler of the world Sam? Would you like the earth to bow before you? Would that prove what we have to you?" There was a brief pause as the blue glow dimmed to a fraction of the burning glare it had been, the huge metal arms trembling to each side of him as they gripped the stone cliff, suddenly straining to hold their own weight. The voice was like nails down a blackboard then, almost frying at the pure desperation and need B was pouring into his buffer.

"I've tried Sam, please believe me. I've tried so hard to come up with a way to show you what you mean to me, to prove that you are everything in my world. I would kill everyone, destroy everything, and do anything you wanted, my love. You are my partner, my charge, my bonded and my mate. If you asked it, I would never speak to another soul but you, and if you told me to never move again I would stay here until my spark was drained. Just tell me what you want and I will do it, Sam. Command me, order me, deny me, banish me, but _please_ stop doubting what we have and feel!" There was a brief zap that interrupted whatever B was saying, his synthesiser disconnecting at the overload before picking back up again a second later.

"You are all I have left Sam, all I need and all I want. I can't lose you too…" The synthesiser shorted out for good then, the voice fading and then cutting off with a sudden brief squeak that was caught and taken by the wind. He could feel B struggle desperately against his own component failure for several seconds before obviously realising it would not be activating again. One of the hands released the now cracked stone and gently touched his metallic spine with a gentle caress that still amazed him.

"_Please…"_ It wasn't the word so much that filled his mind, more a sensation made up of complete and utter want and need that his brain could only translate it into that one word. They both stayed in that position, unmoving, Bumblebee's finger lightly pressed to the base of his spine, the bond humming between them as the rain began to lift and a faint smattering of stars became visible along the horizon. When he eventually spoke, Sam was surprised to note that his voice was steady, though whisper quiet in the slackening wind.

"I do love you B, and not a day goes by that I don't think of how lucky I am that we have each other." There was an expectant pause in the pulsing of the autobot's spark, as though waiting for the 'but' he knew must be coming.

"But I'm also afraid. Afraid of me, afraid of you, afraid of everything. This is something you're born with, but humans don't have anything like what's happening to us. We live our lives alone in our own body. We don't have wireless in our heads or round the clock access to the internet in our minds. We don't share thoughts or emotions over some telepathic or computerised network. Humans aren't built to deal with all of that." There was a sense of disappointment from B that was so thick Sam was sure the bot would have been in tears had he been capable.

"_Termination, ending, break, fracture…"_ It took a second for his mind to turn B's thoughts into something he could understand and then another second for him to comprehend what his autobot was saying. His eyes widened and he couldn't stop himself from leaping away from the cliff face between those legs and wrapping his arms as far around the slim metal waist as he could, face pressed against the hard abdomen, warmth infusing the armour as B heated it against his cheek.

"No B, god no, never. I don't want to end it; I don't want you to leave. I need you." Both arms lifted and encircled him, yellow clad forearms pressing him tightly yet gently against the body of his bot.

"_Need, request, demand, approval, craving, understanding…"_ He didn't understand, the emotions too complex and flashing by too quickly for him to even try and turn them into comprehensible thoughts.

"I don't…" He trailed off in shame and sadness, tears coming back to his eyes at the knowledge that because of him B had destroyed his vocal processor again, and without Ratchet to repair it, he would remain mute for the foreseeable future.

"I'm sorry, B, so sorry. I didn't mean for you to know what I was thinking, and I certainly didn't mean for you to think I didn't want 'us' anymore. I love you, always remember that. Even before we bonded I loved you, more than anything else I know that emotion is still true. Trust that." The arms squeezed him briefly, hard enough that he winced slightly at the pressure.

"_Írony, hypocrisy, deception…"_ His own arms clenched against the metal sides, fingers finding purchase amongst the numerous plates and components.

"I know B. I'll make sure I remember it too ok?" The warmth that filled him at his statement was as sudden has if the sun had risen behind him, bathing him in a love so overwhelming and all encompassing that his eyes watered with joy.

"_Understanding…"_ The arms slowly relaxed around him until he could step back and look up at the blue glow above him, the large head lowering until Sam could press a kiss against the round plate of B's jaw. He nuzzled against the smooth metal, allowing his eyes to gently slide shut as the rain stuck his hair to his neck, simply savouring the perfect feeling of rightness that permeated the moment. When they were like this the problems of the world seemed somehow far away and insignificant. Between them the bond slowly opened like a blossom, boosted under the physical connection, healing itself after their unintentional fight. Sam hated arguing with B and causing his mate pain, as he instinctively knew Bumblebee did with him. It strained their connection, put pressure on points that were still too raw and new to not hurt, and for that he was sorrowful and repentant. Sam remembered his previous promise to B that this wouldn't happen again; that he'd never doubt their commitment, but it had happened nonetheless. After all, he was human, not quite like his bond mate, and never would be, despite the dynamic changes wrought on his frame by both the allspark and the nano-bots. Sam knew they would never make him perfect, and he could feel Bumblebee's acceptance of that fact. Like all lovers, human or not, he knew there would be trouble, that they would argue and fight. He knew however that as long as B had his mate close, then that was all his autobot wanted.

He let out a faint sigh, feeling a shiver pass through the metal against his cheek as his breath gusted across it. He lifted his hand and ran a light touch over the planes of his bot's face, feeling along all the edges and curves with his fingertips and trying to commit every millimetre to memory. The faint whirr in front of him was an unexpected sound amidst the fury of the night and the pelting of the rain, the mechanical noise causing his eyes to open and his arms to cease their touch. The darkness cloaked everything around him in shadow, only a faint reflection of highly polished and water slicked metal highlighting a vague outline of the machine in front of him, the face lit more distinctly in shades of blue. He couldn't see exactly what part of his mate had generated the sound, but he could feel it in his mind, pressing physically and emotionally against their bond, a demand, a need that he'd never felt from his protector since their initial aborted joining on the raceway.

"_Lust…"_

Sam swallowed hard, eyes fixated on the piercing and ethereal glow before him as his hands gently quested along the smooth silver hips, hesitantly creeping gradually closer to the source of the sudden noise. He swallowed again and tried to clamp down on his limbs to stop the increasing tremble in his fingers. In the past it had always been his needs and wants that initiated the physical side of the bond between them, to the point that he had sometimes felt as though he was asking for a physical connection that B didn't seem to need. His mate had always seemed more intent on the connection of their sparks, only interested in the physical to the extent required to complete their connection and satisfy Sam's longings. The sudden reversal of roles took him by surprise, and he was almost virginally hesitant with his movements, unsure if he was mired in a misunderstanding between what he wanted and what his love was requesting of him. His doubt evaporated however when his hands discovered the silver plates that normally guarded Bumblebee's interface cabling were already retracted. The round cover shuddered and disappeared as his hands ghosted across it, his eyes unable to see the mass exposed, but feeling B hunch further above him to protect the exposed warmth from the pouring rain. His hands contacted the long, now protruding length of wiring, feeling the same grease that he remembered from their first encounter quickly coat his damp hands. Above him his lover jerked spasmodically, arousal drowning their bond and confirming that this was what Bumblebee wanted, in spite of his inability to voice it.

"_Confirmation, affection, apology, desire…"_ He didn't have the heart to resist that plaintive request, a need to reaffirm what they had and wanted, and his hands became more eager as they worked along the bulk exposed before him. Large metal hands carefully removed the sole remaining garment from his body, the fingers running across the metal that coated parts of him with a fiery intent, every touch seemingly meant to inflame. Solid digits grasped his head in a gentle yet firm grasp that then forced it backwards as the other hand ran teasing fingers across his shoulders and around the line of black that enclosed his throat. Power trembled within those touches, hands that could crush a car touching and caressing him with restrained effort that seemed to vibrate along the strained cables and components. He could feel the suppressed possession and ownership that filled the large autobot, a demand to take Sam and claim him again, both physically and mentally. After their fight and the horrifying thoughts of separation that had filled both of them the bond sang with Bumblebee's need to once again have his bonded in every way possible, an acolyte worshiping at the altar of a living god made flesh. It filled Sam with a delicious shiver of submission made him shudder with expectation and grow painfully aroused as his bond mates exploration of his body continued.

When the caress reached the base of his spine he once more felt that pulse of electricity that had so stimulated his partner last time, his body and the machines now inhabiting it knowing instinctively what to do in order to fulfil whatever B required of him. The charge flew from his skull and down his back, a build up that culminated with a jump from the base of his spine to the large finger. B jerked at the shock, the sturdy springs and joints that made up his partner flexing before him. The silver and yellow components were barely visible in the dark, but the mass was thrust authoritatively towards him, an arrogant and dominant demand contained in the slow roll of slim hips. The cabling that his small and nimble fingers were currently tracing like ropes of diamonds and exotic pearls, began to writhe like Medusan snakes under his touch. His head was released as the second hand joined the first behind his back, and then he was being lifted up and held. Artificially warmed alloy supported Sam's head and back as his mate held him suspended but sheltered from the rain underneath his hunched chest, tilted slowly onto his back until he was lying securely in those spread fingers.

He felt a twinge of nervousness as the two metal thumbs curled over his biceps and trapped his arms, while surprisingly powerful pinkies sensually pressed open his thighs, spreading them ready for the autobot's pleasure. He couldn't deny B anything, couldn't refuse to give him comfort or pleasure after causing him so much pain. The knowledge too, that he was the only one who could possibly do this; that no one else could ever make Bumblebee feel like this and no one ever would, made him shudder in the unbreakable grasp. He wondered if his mate was as turned on by taking control as he was at surrendering it, or whether B only did it because he could sense the desire for it in Sam. Either way, he couldn't help the almost orgasmic cry that overpowered the storm as something warm and slick pressed against his entrance, the blackness hiding the shape from him but not the feeling. He felt his lover pause at the ferocity of his exclamation, obviously unsure what had caused such a response, unable to understand the pure need the spark bond had imbedded into him to be taken. He needed to know that B had meant everything they'd argued about earlier, that he belonged to the yellow bot and was loved in return. He tried to press back against the waiting shaft, whimpering slightly at his total incapacitation and casting a begging look upwards at his partner. Sam's expressive eyes pleaded with his bot to correctly interpret his overwhelming desire and gut-wrenching need to surrender to B's strength and presence.

There was no hesitation after that, an almost unholy light igniting behind that icy blue as the tone of the bond slowly changed. The thrust a second later was swift and forceful, the writhing mass sliding into him with the suddenness of a gunshot. The powerful abdomen crunched above him as the penetrating connector slammed harshly against his prostate, pausing for only a second before pulling back and going again. The electric buzz hummed down his spine as his passage was stimulated, a flicker of faint blue shimmered against the metal surrounding him, adding to that cast by blazing optics. His body thrummed with the need to override the restraint and control that Bumblebee normally imposed on himself, each shudder and whirr he forced from the bot above him a small victory that drove him to greater heights of pleasure. He could feel the strain in the metal hips and hands, as B held back from going too far and pushing too much. Sam tried to reach for his own cock to alleviate the pressure he could feel building inside him, but his arms and legs remained firmly grasped, and no amount of twisting and turning would free them. The surge of denial that pulsed down their bond stopped him as firmly as the fingers that were clenched around him.

"_Mine, me, possession, ownership, wait…"_ His breath hitched at the implication of those emotions, the promise that he would go without relief until B was ready for him to climax. His mind revelled at the knowledge that he was B's to pleasure and that he would find release when his autobot was ready. His body still demanded it however, and he could hear the desperate pleas passing from his lips, the screams of overwhelming ecstasy as more of Bumblebee entered and pounded against him. His own erection remained achingly untouched, straining away from his body, each twitch also clenching his ass tighter around the bundle of cables that now penetrated him. The pulses across his plates were so fast that he could no longer distinguish where one ended and the next began, pressing B closer and closer to whatever the robotic equivalent of climax was. He didn't know exactly how much of himself his lover had managed to get inside of his body, but Sam knew he'd counted at least five this time, the mass quivering with an almost organic pressure that he could almost believe that was what it was, and then the darkness vanished in white and blinding light.

In front of him B's spark chamber opened, the sudden brilliance painfully blinding him after so long in the near dark. His eyes blinked rapidly in an attempt to adjust, taking in the glimmering fire that was his partner's soul. The energy that was flowing through him suddenly changed, redirected itself as he could almost feel the instincts of the tiny machines within him strain to get closer to that light, sensing something that they needed, that their host needed. Lightning arced across the distance between them, the obsidian collar flashing like a Christmas tree as it discharged through the air and into the open chest above him. He screamed again, or tried to, but the responding discharge of power back from the spark to himself caused his throat to shutdown. His eyes flew impossibly wide as every single cell in his body seemed to grind instantly to a halt and his muscles tried to both pull himself into a ball and bend himself backwards. His head snapped back against the hard surface of the finger supporting it, cracking against it with enough force that he felt the skin split open. He had no control over his actions anymore however, his body not built to handle such an overload of energy, no facility available to excise it.

B was moving heavily inside of him as energy continued to sizzle and discharge between them, each electrical overload only forcing the thrusts in harder, a particularly vicious and sudden impact causing spots to flash across his vision. His abdomen tensed at the intrusion and his vision blacked out for a second, sticky liquid spraying across his chest and stomach in thick, heavy bursts. He thought he had never felt as incredible as he did at that moment, his huge and powerful mate towering above him, his commanding lunges spreading Sam's ass wide before them. The cables moving within him seemed thicker than a wrist, and the dominance and overwhelming control that flooded across their bond threatened never to release him again. He needed it to end though, needed to stop the sensations before they passed the rapidly approaching point where he could tell they would irreversibly change or damage him. His arms pulled against the silver digits restraining them, feeling the energy and the nano-machines assist him until B consented and released him, throwing both hands recklessly into the spark that filled his vision.

If he thought he'd felt the tiny machines inside him before, it was nothing compared to what he felt from them now. He could sense them learning with every sensation, taking in every reaction he had to the stimulus B created, and cementing themselves amongst his instincts and controls, locking his neural pathways before pouring up his extended limbs toward the essence of B that was laid bare above him. He watched like in slow motion as silver laced its way the rest of the way down his arms and across his hands, an intricate spiderweb that terminated at his fingers, black metal sprouting even before he'd touched the glowing energy he was reaching for. A cuff of solid darkness closed around each wrist like symbolic restraints, tendrils sprouting like rampant grape vines across his fingers to join as a single plate encased in his palms. He couldn't stop what he was about to do however, the machines craving it as much as his bond did, both hands disappearing into the light and grabbing the lifeforce of his bonded as though it were a coveted holy grail that would save him.

The electricity that poured through him was a million times more intense than the brief pulses he'd been subjected to earlier, the light throwing the entire clifftop into day. He saw Bumblebee's optics shutoff at the sensation, the blue going unexpectedly dark and watched as seemingly every component of his autobot shivered and tried to wrench itself apart. He was dimly aware of B's broken vocal processor shrieking to life from the overload, a metallic screech oddly reminiscent of Godzilla that overrode his own organic cries. Another thrust of the thick bunch of cables within him was all it took then, both of them loosing themselves in the other, another load of thick whiteness coating his chest as energy buzzed and crackled from the now flickering spark of his bond mate.

The climax seemed to last an eternity and was torturously prolonged with each small movement of his lover's mass inside of him. Eventually the muscles of his hands unlocking enough for him to remove them from Bumblebee's chest and allow the chamber to once again seal his essence away. One of Sam's faintly gleaming obsidian-laced hands came to rest with careless abandon and spent pleasure on the sunshine yellow armour guarding B's spark. His tiredness caught up to him however, and his hands dropped listlessly down to dangle beneath him.

His breath came in short laboured pants as he gradually tried to bring his rebellious systems back to a semblance of normalcy so that he could think, or at least move enough to do something more than look vapidly up into the now relit blue gaze above. Bumblebee was still lodged deep inside him, a fact he was thankful for as he tried to recover, not wanting the complete separation just yet, certain the lack of their joining would have brought tears without a chance to fortify himself first, a need his mate seemed to understand without words.

The hands that had previously been restraining him changed softly to supporting, releasing his legs but holding the strained muscles until he was ready to move on his own.

"_Love, need, crave, desire, forever…" _ In spite of the vigorous nature of the lovemaking they'd only just completed, the strength of B's emotions was as overwhelming as ever, swamping him in the sensation of total and utter thirst for him that suffused their bonding.

"I love you too, B." He didn't know if he was capable of transmitting the depth of feeling that the autobot somehow did without effort, but he hoped he achieved some measure of success. The gentle caress of a metal finger down the side of his face confirmed that his emotions were understood by his partner, the optics staring down at him with something akin to zealous possession. He sighed as he moved slightly, his body gradually coming back under his own control, feeling the supporting digits release his legs and the intruding cabling retract from his passage. He was slowly tilted back into an upright position before B set him carefully down on shaking legs, hands staying protectively around him to ensure he didn't stumble or fall, particularly so close to the precipice behind him. He could also feel the attempt Bumblebee made to hide the need the giant bot was feeling to still be close, fighting the urge to hold onto Sam and never let go. The silver fingers twitched around him with the possessive desire to touch, his mind filled only with the mental sensation of ownership, a chant that only knew one word.

"_Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine…" _His stare didn't waver as it locked with his bonded, revelling in B's possession, laying a still shaking hand on one of the large metal ones to show that the autobot's thoughts were not disturbing or upsetting him.

"Yes, B. Yours, only yours, always yours." Some of the tension seemed to slowly leech out of the towering form, relief and gratitude replacing anxiety Sam hadn't even known was there. He could vaguely make out the large bundle of cables as a barely distinguishable bulk that slowly withdrew inside Bumblebee's body, the soft whirr of gears and hydraulics reaching his ears as the protective cover and plates slid back into place. He became aware that sticky white fluid still coated his chest and stomach, the viscous liquid gradually seeping down across the rain and sweat slicked skin of his torso. He grimaced, tentatively running a finger through the mess before taking a step out from underneath the sheltering form and into the pouring rain. He let the water flow across him, the chill drops carrying away the evidence of what had just transpired and leaving him with only sore muscles and a contented hum across their connection to prove that anything had ever happened.

A beam of silver abruptly cut through the cloud cover, lancing out of the sky like Luna was paving a path for her own descent from the heavens. A second joined it a minute later, then a third. A faint hint of the moon was visible, the clouds tearing apart like rotted fabric in its own wind, allowing colour, faint as it was, to again infuse the world. The last of the rain drizzled down almost like a mist before slowly stopping altogether, only the puddles and the moisture in the air showing it had been there at all, and as Sam shook his head to shed as much of it as possible, he felt suddenly free. The world seemed fresh and new after the storm, clean and pure and ready for what was to come. The stars appeared in ever increasing numbers, a thousand times brighter on the cliff than they ever were from the city. Even the drop off hadn't been this good. He'd thought he'd been seeing the night as it should be, but now he could see how wrong he'd been then, with the lights from the skyline fading the heavenly display. Here it was beautiful and unspoiled, even the faint lights of the town only adding to the scene, a gift from a mother to the children who had abandoned her, a last piece of paradise that would always welcome any that came calling.

The storm had cleansed him it seemed, washed away not the technology that was changing him, but the old beliefs and values that had stopped him embracing it with open arms. The earth was releasing him, freeing him with all the violence of a hen forcing her chick from the nest and out into the world. He didn't belong to humanity anymore or nature, but he didn't belong to the autobots either. He only belonged to B; his bonded, whose approval and acceptance of him still shone in his mind with all the glory and encompassing warmth of the sun. He opened his mouth to try and say everything he was feeling, to try hopelessly to put the myriad of emotions into words and let B share in the perfect moment with him, but a sudden boom split the night wide open. A second later it was joined by a droning roar that swept by them with a speed that was almost unbelievable, too high for human eyes to make out but the sound battered the landscape with the same ferocity as the storm.

He knew that sound. It had nearly heralded his death before, but had also saved his life as well, and he didn't care to wager on which it was bringing this time.

Bumblebee was changing into his car form even before the sound was passed, the driver's door opening towards him with an urgency that didn't seem possible from such an innocuous object. His discarded pants were in his hands in a flash, pulled hastily up over his thighs and quickly cinched at the waist. He took one last look over the drop to the forest below and the coast in the distance, sending a silent prayer of thanks to anyone who was watching over him, then slipped into B's welcoming interior and let the acceleration press him back into the leather embrace.

_Fin_


	6. Chapter 6  Counterpoint

**Ignition**

_Ok :) here's the next chapter. It's one of those interlude parts that people either love or hate… Hopefully love!_

_We needed to catch up on how everything was going – afterall they're all closing in on Sam and Bee._

_Thanks to the people who reviewed – it's nice to know that people are still following the story. As a side note, new chapters will probably be coming every week or so now, rather than my previous every couple of days. It appears that with current commitments that schedule will just be unsustainable. I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me:)_

_Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and I hope you'll leave a review._

_I think that's actually the first time I've asked for reviews :D lol. If you don't though I won't take it personally… since I won't even know you read the story anyway it would be difficult for someone to take it personally…_

_Thanks again to Dania also, for the excellent Beta work she did in not so much correcting the mistakes I made (including spelling Scorponok incorrectly) but also in providing comments and feedback that inspired me to add and change things to the chapter. She's absolutely fantastic and any email brightens my day :)_

_Ok, Dania suggested that this chapter be given a title… She tentatively suggested:_

**Chapter 6 - Counterpoint**

Cigarette smoke curled lazily upwards into the velvety warm night air, a sinuous trail of death that seemed to obscure the distant carnage with a silvery veil of fog. The blinding glare of light from the nearby intersection eliminated any vestigial remnant of darkness attempting to shroud the curving beachside street. Instead they cast forbidding shadows, which crept like the hands of long forgotten ghosts across the expanse of pavement, their shivery caress an imagined touch upon skin. In the vague swirl of toxin-laced clouds, strangely mystifying and puzzling images slowly formed and tugged at the senses like a long forgotten memory, almost allowing recognition before writhing apart on the chill, fickle breezes drifting in from the ocean. Eventually, even their ephemeral presence thinned and dispersed, swallowed up by the atmosphere that once more allowed an unimpeded view of the scene that spilled unnatural light out into the surrounding area.

Will grimaced at the lingering taste the cigarette left in his mouth, long after the smoke itself had cleared. He couldn't help musing that the simple act of breathing the substance in and pushing it back out no longer carried the thrill or satisfaction that it used to. He'd given up cold turkey when their daughter had been on the way, too many flashes of numerous television commercials and billboards declaring the horrible effects of second hand cigarette smoke on children. Even when his squad had been redeployed to the lonely wasteland of Qatar's desert he _still _hadn't even dared to touch them. He was afraid that even the barest hint of taste or even the faint malingering smell on his breath could somehow hurt their unborn child. In fact, since the day his wife had uttered the words 'I'm pregnant' under the soft light at their dining room table, he'd only ever dared to light up on two occasions. The first had been after the damn close call with Blackout and Scorponok that resulted in the destruction of the base and their subsequent frenzied flight through the desert. The second had been shortly after the megalomaniac Megatron's demise, literally at the hands of Sam. In that brief shining moment of relief after an eternity of hardship, nothing had possibly seemed at all wrong. Now, he could add a third time to the short list, a list that didn't seem so short when you considered that all three times were within a few brief weeks of each other. Will hated himself after each relapse when reality eventually caught up to him, and the memories weren't even that pleasant, but he needed the calm now, as he'd needed it then.

He stood under the overarching branches of an ancient, gnarled tree. Thick twining roots draped in a careless fashion from the branches above into the thick verdant grass below, living waterfalls carved in wood and seemingly frozen in time. It was an oasis of flickering shadow and solitude, a fortress from which he could safely observe the buzzing activity that resembled a disturbed nest of fireants about a hundred feet away. It was an island of light amidst the darkness of the very early morning.

Will wasn't exactly sure what time it was. Ignorant to the change in timezones given the globetrotting he and Ironhide had been doing, his watch was foolishly still set to pacific coast time, in spite of the days aboard the cargo ship that had brought them here. It was a lapse he shouldn't have allowed to happen, but then there was a lot about the current situation that shouldn't have been allowed to happen as far as he was concerned. Ironhide shared this opinion, but for reasons markedly different that his own. The huge weapons specialist was more concerned with the fact that Bumblebee and Sam had run, rather than to trust their fellow team members. Interestingly, he seemed completely unaffected by the events surrounding the unorthodox 'spark bonding'. It was almost as though the crusty, old war veteran had a secret soft spot for stories of star-crossed lovers that bridged great barriers to be together. In fact, the image of the brooding, black Topkick perusing sappy newsagent romance novels had given Will a curious half smile for hours.

He could sympathise with the yellow scout's plight, alone and involved in a brutal war that would probably claim the entirety of his species before it ended. It was the kind of contrived plot device that made him unable to stand chick flicks, but that romance writers still constantly drooled over. Hell, he thought he could possibly see how the rambunctious and mischievous Bumblebee became so attached to his teenage charge. He was the boy's protector, his guardian, and had spent every single moment of his life since he had come to Earth almost exclusively in the boy's company. Sam had probably been the first human to see him outside of the alternate car form and to still treat him as a sentient being. If you added in to the equation the infectious enthusiasm and endearing social gaffes that seemed to define Sam's existence, it was no wonder Bumblebee had developed some sort of feelings for him.

Yes, Will could definitely see how this situation had come about, but that didn't erase the fact that he would never fully understand it. The American military covered homosexual relationships within its ranks with its infamous 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy. It was a ridiculous concept, as invariably they were found and persecuted, the policy only there to provide a convenient legal loophole when they occasionally pressed charges. Even that policy only went so far however, and relationships between two guys was one thing, a relationship between a kid and his 16 foot tall, shape changing, sentient robot guardian from another world, was something different altogether. Will didn't even know if the Autobots were properly capable of feeling the same things humans were, and he wondered if one day Sam would wake up to discover that Bumblebee's fascination with him had worn off, and he'd have missed the most important years of his life. It was this failure to accept or understand the fullness of the spark bond that he and Ironhide disagreed most strongly over.

What Will _did_ understand however, was the strong sense of brotherhood that grew and flourished between squad members. No matter what that person had done, if one of his men had suddenly gone AWOL, he would have been just as single-minded and dedicated as Ironhide in protecting them. After everything they'd been through together, he thought of Sam as just as much a part of his unit as if he'd been there in Qatar with him. He still remembered the look in those youthful eyes as he'd told him to run, that he was a soldier now. He may not have got the youth involved with the Autobots and Decepticons, but he'd do everything he could to make sure he survived it. If that meant forgetting _why_ Sam had run with Bumblebee and focusing only on how to get them back, he could do that. After all, operating on only partial information and carrying out military ops with which you didn't agree were part and parcel of military life. Well, that and making damn sure your watch was always set to local time and carrying a credit card with you for those emergency overseas calls...

He raised the glowing tube to his lips and drew in a long steady drag, watching the brightness of the cigarette briefly surpass the lights in the distance. He held the smoke in his lungs for a brief second, watching a small group of kids break away from the crowded intersection, and then exhaled with a barely suppressed cough. Will grimaced once again at the taste that filled his mouth and nose, blowing harshly to clear the cloudy air. He was supposed to be watching and reporting, not thinking about the whys and wherefores of the mission.

Although his eyes hadn't left the source of the unnaturally abundant light, he really hadn't been observing as he should have. The lamps had to be roadwork spotlights, strung from the telescoping spider arms of the gargantuan diesel trailers beneath them. Brilliant yellow lettering and stickers were plastered across the sides and tops, loudly proclaiming them to be 'Property of Main Roads' where they still managed to peek through the overlying graffiti. These commandeered industrial lights harshly illuminated a small hive of activity. Numerous local citizens and public service workers hovered around the most bizarre accident scene Will thought he'd ever witnessed, a sedan wrapped around nothing. Encircling them, a temporary barricade of shopping trolleys and restaurant chairs had been erected with police tape looped drunkenly throughout to complete the circle. The crowd that had gathered stood well back, as though even the sight of the tape was somehow unsettling to the residents of this quiet beachside community.

He'd sidled up as inconspicuously as possible, breathing the whole scene in with several quick, calculated looks. Years of military training had made short work of the incident as he noted the degree of severity of the accident, the deep gouges in the asphalt that exactly matched the shape of the impact, and the extent of the damage that told just how fast the driver had been travelling. He didn't need Newton or Einstein's knowledge of physics to figure that the guy had been going way over the limit. Dangerous enough on a crowded main street, but factoring in the violence of the ocean-borne storm, his reckless driving very well could have led to disastrous consequences for many innocent bystanders. If it weren't for the fact that Will knew Sam and Bumblebee had somehow been responsible for the accident he would have felt a grim sense of satisfaction at the body that was slowly being prized from the bloody metal caress of the mangled vehicle.

He'd carefully backed away after observing everything he thought he could, and reported all of it to Ironhide over the cell phone. His autobot companion had wisely chosen to park out of sight a couple of streets away, a large, foreign truck roaring onto the scene after such a disturbing night would be unlikely to garner sympathy or cooperation from the authorities.

He'd expected that once it became obvious that their targets were not here they'd be back on the road again, however it hadn't been until he'd asked the question of where they were headed that it had actually sunk in that they had absolutely no idea. Somehow he'd manage to forget that he knew as much about the possible location of Bumblebee and Sam as his companion did, he was used to always having someone with more intel dictate his next course of action. When Ironhide had calmly told him that he had no idea he'd actually been surprised, certain that a sentient, enormous machine with instantaneous access to every byte of data known to mankind would absolutely have a destination in mind. So, here he was, still standing and waiting, watching for any possible clue and slowly smoking the damn cigarette.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily depending on how you chose to look at it, the sky was abruptly split open by the roaring thunder of a sonic boom. The tree above him shivered as the sound waves pounded against it, causing water and leaves to rain down and soak him through as Will fled out into the street beside him. The crowds he had been watching seemed to panic at the strange and unknown sound, some bolting towards the buildings or their cars, while others just flinched and hunkered down. In spite of the fact that he knew exactly what the sound was and that the machine responsible for it was more than likely unaware he was there, Will felt the urge to take cover as strongly as the panicking people around him. The noise was out of place here, an unexpected shock that rapidly faded after its initial blast. Instead it was replaced with a dull roar that announced the jet aircraft responsible for the disturbance, and the sound streaked away to the north, uninterested in his current position.

Will silently cursed his good luck, both that the Decepticon who made that sound wasn't after him, and that it had given them an idea of where they should be headed. Carelessly, he tossed the cigarette away; the now almost burnt stick rolling across the road in a fitful shower of sparks before dropping out of sight into a storm drain. His shoes slapped wetly against the pavement as he hurtled around the corner into one of the side streets. The phone in his hand beeped uncaringly at his desperate attempts to get through to Ironhide, the bland and uninterested tones of the recorded voice informing him that all lines were busy. He swore after the second attempt, before foolishly hurling the delicate plastic into the nearest wall of the alley. They had to be on the road before Starscream managed to elude the autobot's sensors, and Will had no doubt that the specialist was so focused on tracking their enemy that it hadn't even occurred to him to monitor the human travelling with him, so he could perhaps come to him rather than the other way around.

Headlights almost ran straight into him as he flung himself into the slightly darker street, and he only just managed to suppress a very unmanly shriek as they halted bare inches from his outstretched arms. He couldn't make out the driver, but the model of the car looked eerily familiar. He'd described many cars as many things over the course of his life, everything from beautiful to junk. When he'd met Bumblebee and Sam he'd instantly noticed that the Camaro concept was wonderfully aggressive and powerful in design. It suited the possessive and protective nature of the yellow autobot perfectly. However, the sleek silver shape in front of him went beyond aggressive to downright dangerous and deadly. He stepped cautiously to the side, taking a couple of small steps towards the driver's door, bending down slightly to look in the open window. There was something inherently wrong with the entire encounter. Such a blatantly expensive car should not have been in this town of family pickups and run down beach-going sedans. How Sam had even managed to hide Bumblebee here was still a mystery to him. It wasn't until the driver in his mid twenties turned to look at him however, and pinned him with a cruel, almost glowing crimson gaze that Will truly realised what was about to happen.

"Captain William Lennox." The voice was smooth and urbane, like a friend running into someone they hadn't expected, yet somehow maliciously twisted with sadistic intent. There was a brief flicker, like a pre-LCD TV about to go on the fritz, and then the driver vanished, the back door popping open in clear invitation. A sticker was faintly visible across the top of the glass, frosted letters adorning the window, '_To Punish and Enslave'._ He hesitated, a dozen plans and courses of action rapidly considered and rejected, until the engine revved at him in unmistakeable warning. He took one more look past the silver car into the distance where he knew Ironhide was waiting for him, the weapons specialist surely a match for the sedan in front of him. He wondered briefly what would happen if he just bypassed the open door and took off, however a whisper of heated breath across his ear stopped him dead in his tracks.

"I really wouldn't try it if I were you." A hand gently settled against the back of his neck, a fake and unpleasant warmth seeping into his skin. Nimble fingers teased up into his hair and across his scalp before clenching terrifically hard into the short strands and yanking his head backwards until he could meet those pulsing red eyes from barely an inch away.

"You won't like what I do to you if I have to chase you." A faint leer flickered across the face as quickly as the image had vanished before, eyes travelling across his face and body so swiftly he wasn't even sure he'd seen it. The slightly ungroomed hologram leaned in until he felt a wet tongue slide across the base of his throat and up towards his ear, where it suddenly and harshly became teeth, biting his flesh just below his jaw line.

"What the fuck!?" He shoved against the slim body, but his attempt to fight back had absolutely no effect on whatever projection technology the Decepticons employed. Instead Barricade unexpectedly released him, the hand that had been clenching his hair sinuously sliding along his head and down across his cheek before settling curved around the base of his throat. Clad as a leather and denim-wearing youth, this projection was a far departure from the previous law enforcement officer, unkempt and full of a rebelliousness that would never have suited a policeman. The eyes though, the eyes were just as hard and cruel as before, and they stared at him with almost a challenge, daring him to try and escape and simply give the Decepticon any excuse to hurt him further. The too-warm hand dropped down his chest briefly before pulling away and slipping into the pocket of its owners tight jeans, and Will raised his own to replace it, tentatively touching the bite mark he knew had to be there. His fingertips were stained red when he drew them in front of his face, and he glared at the unreal person with a look that he hoped was even half as terrifyingly effective as Barricade's was.

"A taste of what's to come if you try anything foolish, human. Get in." There was another shimmer and then the man was gone, leaving him once again alone with the idling silver car. He knew Ironhide would be waiting for him to come back, but by the time he thought to wonder about how long it was taking and pull some of his scanners away from tracking Starscream, he'd probably be well gone. Try as he might however, he couldn't find a way to escape his current situation.

"Shit." The sound of the door slamming as he sat on the cool leather seat rang like a death knell in his head.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cool wind whipped around the two black suit attired men standing in the churned mud that filled the space between the curving asphalt of the highway and the sharp edge of an almost vertical cliff face. Although buttoned, their jackets still flapped in the gale, the trousers whipping about their legs like flags, outlining the limbs clearly for anyone watching. Around them more similarly dark figures moved across the wet earth with single minded intent, eyes focused only on the mud before them, latex gloved hands dipping every now and then to collect something and add it to a zip lock sample bag that was numbered and then set carefully aside. It was dark and damp in the early morning air, and the headlights of the numerous unmarked vans were making barely a dent in the encroaching blackness, providing just enough light to stop people tripping over and little more. The constant flickering of flashlights were like powerful fireflies that buzzed back and forth across everything in the area, occasionally reflecting off the blacked out windows of the bulky shape behind the observers.

Longer than a family minivan, but not quite long enough to classify as a bus, the largest vehicle still provided an imposing silhouette against the starlit skyline, the enormous satellite dish protruding from its back resembled some misshapen dorsal fin. It turned minutely as the minutes ticked over, a small whirring noise that still managed to cut through the whistling breeze to the ears of the small crowd moving around it.

The two figures standing next to it seemed unaware or uncaring of the mud that had crept halfway up and over the top of their otherwise spotless leather shoes. The tallest stared unseeingly off towards the horizon, eyes unmoving from the not so distant drop that marked the edge of their faintly lit domain. In contrast, his companion instead watched the men that inhabited their immediate area, small harried movements displaying the nervousness that must have filled him, polar opposite to his companion's solid and unwavering stance.

"Are you certain this will work, sir? All indications are that they left this area almost an hour ago." The voice appeared to provoke no response from the taller man for several seconds, as though the wind had torn the words away before they could reach the other's ears. The only indication that his question had been heard was a brief flicker of eyes that almost immediately resettled on the dark landscape.

"The lab experiments and the techs assure me it will work. The cloud cover will amplify the signal and give us a range of a hundred miles or so. The Autobot is capable of exceeding that speed of course, but at this point I believe they'll be trying to avoid drawing any more attention than they need to." The tone was abrupt, almost dismissive, as though the speaker was either unused to people questioning his methods or simply too confident to even consider anyone who did.

"And you're certain they'll respond to the message?" A slight narrowing of eyes was the first emotion to cross the otherwise impassive face, the gaze tearing away from its distant focus and turning to the smaller man that stared equally as strongly back.

"Relax, John. We have his family. Trust me, they'll come. The boy won't be able to risk their lives, and the machine won't risk us hurting the boy." Behind them a slight whisper of metal announced the opening of the large van's door; a bushy head confined under a large pair of earphones was nothing more than a vague shape as it protruded from the dark interior into the equally dark night.

"We're ready to go, sir." There was a faint sound of liquid as the tallest pulled his shoes from the mud and stooped to enter the cramped interior of the vehicle. The smaller man was also forced to bend as they traipsed slick and dirty footprints up the small stairs and over the rubber floored compartment. Equipment filled it to bursting, lights flashing and screens illuminating the faces of the people currently hunched over them. No one turned to look up on the newcomers' entrance, not even a blink to acknowledge as the door slammed closed behind them. Every eye was glued to a screen or readout, headsets cocooning every ear against outside interference. The senior member turned his attention to the nearest seated technician and grasped his shoulder firmly.

"We're within range to transmit?" The hunched form made no attempt to turn away from the illuminated display in front of him, only nodding to indicate an affirmative, hands clicking rapidly on keys as lines of code flashed before him.

"And you're certain they'll pick up the signal?" Again a faint nod was his answer, the sound of clicking keys fading out as the atmosphere inside the van shifted. Vague and tentative glances were thrown between the seated men and back toward those still standing as all noise gradually faded away and left the van almost unnaturally still. The hand relaxed, changing from grasping the shoulder to simply resting on it, the man straightening as much as possible in the small space enclosing them. His eyes flashed over to his companion from outside, a smile that screamed with a cruelly malicious victory twisting the corner of his lips.

"Then let's call our newest soldier home, shall we gentlemen?"

_Fin_


	7. Chapter 7

**Ignition**

_Ok, well this is a very long chapter (not my longest but still long) and I hope people will forgive any alterations I make to character history and so on. There's not a lot that I'd consider major changes, but I have probably messed substantially with canon… which considering that any Fanfiction must to some degree violate canon, isn't so bad :)_

_Thank you to all the people who reviewed – you're all an inspiration. I'd get more personal with these thank you's but I've spent SOOOO long on this chapter that I really just want to post it so I can stop the screaming readers who're threatening to hunt me down._

_Also, there's a few twists and turns in this chapter so I hope everyone can follow it clearly enough._

_Once again thank you to Dania for her Beta'ing work… I know you only ended up getting to read about a quarter of the chapter in the end but I hope you'll like the rest of it!_

_Bon Appetite!_

**Chapter 7**

As far as her memory recalled, Judy couldn't recollect a time when she'd ever really feared the dark. She'd never been one of those children that cowered under the sheets or needed a nightlight to scare away the imagined terrors of the unknown. Growing up she had always viewed the night as a friend, someone who brought relaxation and sweet dreams of princesses and faraway places that children never thought to see.

She knew it was childish, pathetic really, now that she was middle aged with a child of her own, that this fear would suddenly surface. She could remember chiding Sam herself for that very same thing. Never having experienced it, she had suffered great distress when at the tender age of five she had removed the old pooh nightlight from Sam's room only to find that her son had shivered with fear every evening at the mere thought of his darkened bedroom, incapacitated by an almost paralysing fear of monsters. In spite of all her reassurances there had eventually been no other option than to put the light back in, where it would remain for almost another six full years until Sam had finally removed it himself claiming that its glow kept him awake. She still had the nightlight, afraid to throw it out after her son had spent so many years desperately needing its company. She wished she had it with her now.

She didn't think she'd ever experienced darkness quite like the one completely enshrouding her. Since she had been carelessly thrown into this abyss Judy hadn't been able to stop shivering at the complete and utter blackness of her prison. It was pervasive in its totality, smothering the world around her more thoroughly than even closed eyelids could manage. No welcoming slivers of light were present to relieve the pressure of her imprisonment and she felt as if it stretched off into the distance around her as though she floated at the edge of the universe itself, unending and impenetrable.

Without the rough, catching surface of the glacially cold concrete that pressed against her back, Judy thought she might have given in to the sense of horrifying vertigo. The sense of spinning in an eternity of nothingness was nearly enough for her to give in to the desperate urge to scream, to prove to herself that she still really existed. Thankfully she had managed to hold her terror in check so far, unwilling to give her captors the satisfaction of knowing exactly how their efforts were succeeding, and beneath that, a genuine fear that just like in barely remembered nightmares, she would open her mouth and nothing would come out.

The cell she was in was small; she'd caught a fleeting glimpse as she'd been roughly dropped in. Tentative touches, spastic jerking movements of someone just blinded, had guided her around the confined box, the rough surface unbroken except for the porcelain of the toilet, a small comfort that she had been almost insanely grateful for when lunch had revisited her within minutes of the door slamming closed behind her. She couldn't remember which side the door was on, there were no betraying fragments of light or even faint seam in the wall to indicate its presence, but she was reluctant to completely define the boundaries of her underground prison, lest claustrophobia only add to her panic.

There was no indication of how much time had passed, how many days she'd been left there to wait helplessly alone in the dark. She slept and woke according to her body's exhaustion, sleeping in fitful bursts when not even the terror could keep her eyes open anymore. Periodically a small slot on the door opened and a cup of soup and small loaf of bread was slipped in, but from what she could tell the interval was random and gave her no clue as to the length of her confinement. In the beginning Judy had waited tensely for them to come for her, to take her somewhere to be questioned or perhaps drop some clue, some crumb that hinted at their identity and what they could have wanted from a middle aged couple.

She'd tensed every time the panel had squeaked, tasting the metallic tang of adrenaline on her tongue as she waited for the rush of bodies and the grasping hands, but so far her prediction had not come to pass. In truth, she no longer believed that it would. They had no questions for her, no truths they cared to impart. She didn't know whether the revelation had taken days, or maybe it had even been weeks now, but she thought she knew why she was here, alone and waiting in this eternal night. The thought relieved her and sickened her at the same time.

They wanted someone else.

Not just anyone though, someone who had something they wanted, someone who would come to her aid. Sam. Her baby, her son, her legacy. They knew about the alien machines and maybe even about Sam's involvement with them, whatever exactly that was. Obviously, they were willing to do anything to get at them. She unconsciously ran a hand over her other palm, feeling the now dried liquid flaking away and shivered.

"_Run Judy!"_

The memory was like a flash of colour and light in her mind, whiting out the black of her cell with a vibrancy that was beyond anything in real life; as though her mind was trying to remember what colour looked like and was getting everything just a little bit wrong. The sunlight streaming into the dining room was brighter than she was sure it had been, the oaken timber of the table a richer and deeper tone than naturally possible. The urgency in Ron's voice however was burnt into her mind so firmly that she doubted anything could possibly make her forget it. The bottle of cleaning liquid slid from suddenly panicked fingers as she'd dropped the cloth she'd been using on the silverware and shot through the kitchen toward that cry. The crash of splintering wood was followed by the front door slamming into the gyprock of the wall, the handle burying itself in the plaster. Unexpected brilliance had surged in through the open doorway, momentarily blinding her and anonymous arms had latched firmly onto her waist. She'd struggled to free herself from them, not so much truly fearful at that stage, more simply from the shock of being grabbed. She'd kicked and yelled, feet and arms flailing wildly against whoever had hold of her until a thud had caused them to release and she'd seen Ron desperately pulling her captor away.

"_Run Judy!"_

The cry was as desperate as the last one and she'd looked up into his eyes, seeing a comprehension of something in them that she knew was missing from her own. He tried to hurl her assailant out the broken front door, leaning his weight against the splintered timber in an effort to close it at the same time. Her legs seemed frozen now that she was free, but she couldn't make any twitch of movement to obey his request. Almost as if watching some scene on television, Judy stared as more men in black charged up the front stairs towards where Ron struggled against the first intruder. Silent and shocked, she watched as a fist caught him on the side of the face, hurling him backwards in slow motion from the narrow entry as the door once more slammed into the wall. One of their assailants fell back slightly from the others and reached a meaty hand inside his jacket. She'd watched as the hand had come back out clutched firmly yet calmly around the black handle of a pistol, a sausage-like finger squeezed around the trigger as unfriendly eyes had stared unwavering in their intent.

The thundering discharge echoed in the narrow corridor around them, and for a brief instant, time, for all its inevitability, had seemed to freeze obligingly just for her. It was a moment, perfectly captured in ghastly detail as her husband stood braced, wide eyed and unmoving against the wall just a couple of feet away. In the once pristine passage, their attackers clustered around the doorway, frozen in mid step where they crossed the threshold as a slow grey curl of smoke twisted in the breeze at the end of the glistening black weapon.

Judy thought the sound had lingered for quite a while, reverberating against her again and again. Looking back, it seemed as though it may simply have been in her mind. When it had finally vanished altogether, all she'd been able to hear was her own harsh panting for several seconds, the smell of an acrid smoke tainting each breath. She'd looked up to meet her husband's eyes, his forehead wrinkled slightly with the same puzzled look he'd often get whilst trying to solve a particularly difficult crossword. Ron had opened his mouth slowly, as though about to ask her what had happened, but the only sound to emerge had been a broken cough, a harsh, rattling exhalation that to her ears had seemed just as loud as the gunshot only moments before.

Judy hadn't understood right then exactly what had happened, not until she noticed the maroon shirt turn an even darker shade and seen the slight spots of blood that flecked across Ron's lips. She'd felt her throat constrict and a cry escape her, though she didn't remember hearing the sound, her hands grabbing the bloody grip her husband extended towards her before he stumbled and slipped to the side. It was one quick clasp, the promise of forever on their wedding day, a passionate grip on lustful nights, a gesture of support as she laboured to bring their son into the world, her husband's hand. All that, she felt in the brief second where their palms connected, and then the blood slick hand pulled away from her seeking one and clumsily sought the wall for support. A vivid, scarlet trail marred the antique floral wallpaper like an arrow predicting his destination. Judy could still hear the crash of the breaking mirror on the sideboard, a tenth anniversary gift, as it toppled over under Ron's unexpected collision, the glass glittering in the air in slow motion before settling to the ground in a thousand spinning and coruscating pieces.

She'd tried to get to him, tried to recapture the hand that had slid from hers, but unyielding arms had once again seized around her waist and yanked her toward the front door. She'd screamed and wailed, calling for help from neighbours or anyone who could listen, but she didn't remember any actual sound, her life and the world suddenly put on mute, silent and awaiting judgement. She'd struck the men uselessly, trying to grasp anything that could help her, bloody handprints smearing the jacket hanging on the shattered sideboard and the black suits around her, but the arms pulled her with implacable force. She'd seen the helpless look in Ron's eyes, watched him try to reach toward her, watched as he seemed to sag a little more in on himself. She'd caught the message though, that final desperate glimpse before the wall of men had separated them from each other.

_Fight them, Judy. Don't give them what they want._

Then she'd been outside, as the man with the gun swapped it silently for a mobile phone and placed it to his ear. The hot sun burnt down on her as she was harshly shoved into the back of a black cargo van, the interior stifling and oppressive in the heat. There was one small prick, an insect's kiss, barely felt amidst the harsh hand grips, then the fluid flowed through the sterile needle and everything slowly became hazy, allowing her a few brief moments of pain and panic free darkness before her true punishment would begin.

Her palm felt raw where she'd been scrubbing at it, her fingers running over and over the same spot while she remembered those last frantic minutes at her house. When she'd come too she'd been stumbling down a dimly lit corridor, supported between two of the men, her body seemingly deaf to her own mind as she was dragged meekly to her fate. They hadn't said a word to her in the brief minutes they'd had her, not even a sound as they'd opened the heavy iron door. They'd calmly and coolly dropped her unceremoniously in the dark room that was to be her new home and then sealed it up tight behind them.

When she'd finally mustered enough control over her faculties to stand up and move around, she had screamed to know what had happened to her husband. No answer was forthcoming however and no explanation was or would be offered. When she'd finally realised that there would be no response to her demands and no torturous interrogation, she had truly understood exactly what Ron had feared. He'd known, perhaps not completely, but he'd suspected, that what was happening was related to Sam. They weren't blind. They had both seen the expression on their son's face when they'd walked in on him in the hospital room, and they'd known by the way they both rushed off that someone or something was after them. Neither she nor Ron had actually known what had happened between Sam and the alien robot that seemed to have adopted him, but they had seen in that instant that nothing would stop it.

And so she had let her baby go.

She had thought it was over once the two of them had gone. She had thought that whoever was after them would follow. The thought had kept her up at nights as she wondered where they had gone and why, but she had seen the absolute devotion the machine had shown in just those few brief caresses, and she had understood without a doubt that Sam's protection was much greater _with_ the robot than without. She'd never imagined that her son's protection wasn't the only thing she had to worry about. Evidently her husband had though.

Ron had always been the type to look at the bigger picture, always look past the fence to what was on the other side. It was his attention to detail that had held them together through some of their rough patches. He had never forgotten an anniversary or birthday, he had never failed to plan something romantic or special for them when he could tell she was feeling down. He had always shown the same care and devotion to his life as he did to the garden that he prized so much. Ron looked at everything, always. And he had obviously seen something that she had not.

The chill seemed to settle in further around her and she pulled her legs up to her chest in an effort to keep warm. She guessed that somewhere her captors were observing her, watching to make sure she didn't attempt escape or maybe even recording her to use as blackmail or hostage material. She knew she must look like a frightened child, curled up against the wall, but at the moment she really didn't care. Ron had told her to fight, to deny them whatever it was they wanted, but when all they wanted was her, there was little she could do to stop them. For all she knew Sam was already here somewhere, locked up like she was while these men did horrible and painful experiments on him and his robot.

Warm tears leaked slowly from the corners of her eyes and she harshly rubbed them away. Huddling up for warmth was one thing, breaking down and sobbing in front of the bastards was entirely another. She leaned her head back against the stone and narrowed her eyes at the darkness, as though it was a physical presence she could somehow intimidate. They may have taken almost everything from her, and there was nothing she could do about that anymore, but she wasn't going to give them her son as well. She closed her eyes briefly and sent a silent prayer to any god who was listening to keep her baby boy safe.

_Don't come for me, Sam. Whatever you do, don't give them what they want._

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mum!"

_Bonded!_

The squeal of tyres shattered the stillness of the slowly lightening vista, Bumblebee's harsh mental shriek vibrating Sam's skull as his own cry vibrated the air inside the cabin. He unconsciously reached out and arched up from the seat, desperate to grab on to the horrifying vision that still assailed his senses and pluck his mother from it. With a flash of movement a million small belts and webs flew out of the interior around him to arrest his panicked motion. They moved with a swiftness that almost made them invisible to his eyes, but were still unbelievably gentle as they twisted and twined around him, securing him firmly down to the chair, cushioned softer than any lover's embrace.

He felt the swaying of their slightly erratic course, sensing the smoothness of the road turn to the roughness of loose gravel as B left the highway and lurched drunkenly onto the shoulder. His breathing was loud in his ears, louder even than the noise of their final jerking stop, and his hands, strapped tightly to the edge of the chair, clenched against the leather as he hyperventilated in the climate controlled air. The bond whip-lashed wildly through him, as though it were a garden hose that someone had let go of, coiling and striking at random until all coherency and meaning was lost. He could feel something else there in the connection, a third presence, not intelligent or even really alive, but somehow there, and it had torn their joining asunder. He sensed B trying to control it, to sever this thing that was coming between them, like trying to untangle bundled up Christmas tree lights and weave a blanket at the same time. He reached out for his bond mate even through the chaos, trying to stop the wildly surging energy, watching through the windshield as the clouds of dust swirled in frenzy through the harsh beam of the headlights, almost in sympathy with their struggle. Like blood through a fatal wound however, he could still feel the bond slipping away from his grasp. There was a final pull from his bond mate, a final frantic, desperate tug that carried all the need and fear that the loss of their joining evoked, and with an almost physical snap he felt the connection sever. Power, uncontrolled and targetless pulsed back against him like a guitar string stretched and then cut, and in an instant everything shut off.

He couldn't move his head or limbs, but his eyes flew about in a panic, wildly oscillating back and forth across the darkened dash, his heavy breaths still eliminating any chance of hearing a sound from the engine. Scattered memories of the vision welled up before him, darkness and silence so absolute that light was not only unknown, but unremembered, and added to the seemingly gaping emptiness that now overflowed from within him. Around him the webs remained in place, a cradle of protection that seemed to try and shelter him from the demons set loose in his head, a task they couldn't possibly perform but one they attempted anyway. The only light came from the faint glow that was slowly brightening the horizon, a sign of the day to come as the stars began to fade in preparation to surrender the sky back to their cousin. Under any other circumstances it would have been a peaceful, perhaps even beautiful moment, but for Sam it just stretched on and on until he was sure that he was about to break down into a gibbering mess. He could still feel the bond that had become so much a part of his life, but it was dull, unresponsive and as seemingly lifeless as the metal shell that surrounded him. Then, with a faint hum and a surge of power, Bumblebee came back online.

_Panic, doubt, anger, protect._

The sob that came from his lips was one of relief so complete he actually wailed like a child. As though burned, the belts and fabrics that cushioned him withdrew back to their original positions and he hurled himself across the centre console, one arm splayed across the top while the other curled helplessly against the glove compartment. Sparks flew from their contact, as though even their brief separation from each other caused them to need to reaffirm the other was still there.

"Oh god, B." Comfort flowed from his partner, energy snaking and rippling across his flesh like water, a replacement for a physical touch he could not feel, and he allowed himself just those few moments to think about nothing but the pulsing of the bond between them.

_Apology, regret, failure, embarrassment._

He understood in spite of the confusion, knowing that the shutdown had not been intentional and that B had not meant to make him feel so terrified. Whatever had happened had seriously impacted on their connection. He'd felt it tearing through him like a knife through flesh; the intrusive, almost violent penetration of it into his sleeping mind had been like an invasion, unwelcome and terrifying in the ease with which it occured. He couldn't help the shiver that passed through him at the knowledge that somehow his mind had been violated. He felt used, dirty, both angry and scared that something so sacrosanct, so private and so totally B's had been entered by someone else. Beneath his own revulsion he felt the white hot blaze of his autobot's equally powerful anger at the foreign trespass onto his territory. He felt the energy ribbons pull away from him and retreat, his guardian uncertain that he could restrain himself from claiming Sam again after such an event.

He wanted to give in to that, to tell B that he felt just as disconnected, but the background demand had been unmistakeable throughout the entire event, an insidious message carried with the vision of his mother, strong and uncompromising. An emotion, no, a command, to return.

_Come._

There had been no actual words, in the same way that the bond didn't allow B to speak directly to him, but the intent of the communication had been clear.

_We have your mother. Come now, or else…_

He didn't need to think to know who or what was sending the message. The Autobots would never have done something so despicable, and he doubted the Decepticons would ever think to kidnap his parents, since sexual reproduction was a concept of organic life. The rumble of B's engine agreed with his assessment and he shivered at the mere thought of putting himself in the hands of a group like Section 7. The memories of their harsh abduction, and the horrific capture and torture of Bumblebee were still fresh in both their minds; to the point that he thought he could still feel the sting of the liquid nitrogen in the air.

_Or else…_

Tremors wracked him at that horrific sense of foreboding that had ended the transmission, and he knew that this was no idle bluff. If he refused them or denied their request there was little doubt in his mind that one phonecall would see his mother dead in a matter of seconds, her body probably never to be found. The fact that he had seen no evidence at all as to the whereabouts of his father was something that he didn't want to dwell on any more than he had to. There was a brief shudder in the bond between them, a tremor of fear from his guardian that conveyed more effectively than words ever could how afraid B was for both of them, and how desperately he didn't wish to return. It was hard to believe that a group of humans could scare his mate more than facing down Megatron, but Megatron would just want to kill them, Section 7 would want something much worse.

In spite of this obvious terror invoked in his guardian, there was no command across the bond, no silent demand to abandon his mother to her death, no order to obey that he couldn't refuse. This was a choice that only he could make, and his bonded was leaving the decision up to him, their fate in his hands.

He'd barely drawn a breath when twin plumes of gravel were thrown up by B's rear tyres, accompanied by the wide swerve of the back end, throwing him into his seat as they did a rapid 180 and tore off back in the direction they'd come.

Afterall, it wasn't really a choice at all, was it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mr Secretary!" The assistant was shoved forcefully out of the way as the blonde woman slammed her shoulder into the office door and smashed them open in a breathless rush.

"Secretary Keller!" She stumbled for a second on the thick weave of the carpet, one of the unnecessarily long heels snapping off and forcing her to catch herself on the back of the couch.

"Maggie? What on earth is it?" The woman slumped down into the chair before the desk, apparently mindless of her harried appearance and panting breaths.

"We… satellites picked up…" The man handed her a glass of water which was swiftly gulped down as a plain yellow envelope was almost hurled across the desk. Aging yet still agile fingers easily tore open the package and dumped the papers unceremoniously onto the large timber and leather inlaid surface. Several were hurriedly picked up in no particular order, an action apparently born more of the obvious panic in the woman than in any true understanding of what the paper contained.

"I'm afraid I don't understand what I'm looking at here Ms Madsen." With a final swallow the last of the water disappeared down the pale throat and the crystal glass was slid across the desk, sliding off the edge and shattering in spite of the carpet below.

"We just detected an enormous energy discharge in the frequency bands we were monitoring. In addition we picked up several heat blooms in response to it." One of the sheets of paper was flipped over between them showing a thermal scan that clearly displayed several unusually bright points of light in an otherwise seemingly blank area. Manicured nails indicated the points as their owner drew in a harried breath, impatient eyes watching over the tops of wire framed glasses.

"We don't know exactly what the energy surge was, sir, but we do know that it's right in the range _they_ use. And we weren't the only ones who noticed." No attempt was made to explain the remaining papers scattered across the desk, the two of them obviously confident enough with each other to trust in their word. The man grabbed the handset of the slim black phone perched before him and almost punched one of the buttons.

"Admiral, this is Keller. Are the Kitty Hawk and her group still waiting on station after that little incident at the Marianas?" There was less than a two second pause for the person on the other end to answer.

"Excellent. That scenario we were cooking up just might be going down. Tell the captain to get his ass down there and launch every plane he's got as soon as he's in range." He halted as the other person obviously interrupted.

"Look Admiral, I don't care if they run out of fuel and can't make it back, the pilots can ditch if they have to, but we can't risk _them_ falling into the wrong hands. Get me some planes in the sky, am I clear?" The phone was slammed down without waiting for a response, the office falling into a tense silence for several moments as both occupants seemed to consider the ramifications of what was happening.

"You do realise that if you're wrong I've just cost us billions of dollars worth of lost aircraft and possibly missing or injured pilots." The comment sounded light, a half hearted attempt to make a joke out of the nervousness that was almost palpable in the air, but neither of the two smiled.

"I'm not wrong, Sir." Their eyes met over the desk, silently evaluating each other as though searching for any doubt.

"No, Maggie. I don't think you ever are."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will sat silently in the back seat he had been unceremoniously forced into, his eyes occasionally watching the faintly glowing red ones that were visible in the rear vision mirror ahead of him. He'd tried talking to the Decepticon, finding out what was happening and what he was going to do to him, but no answers had been given and eventually a viciously snarled "Silence, human!" and a clenching of his seat belt had convinced him that annoying the alien machine was probably not a good idea. He'd felt a slight lessening of their pace over the previous few minutes, even a relaxation of the projected form in the driver's seat, as though his abductor felt secure enough in their escape to let down his guard slightly. So now he sat there, heart going a million beats a minute as he contemplated exactly what was going to be done to him and where they were going.

"Cease your fidgeting human, I'm not going to damage you." Will started and jerked backwards at the voice that came from uncomfortably close to his ear, his eyes swiftly taking in the now empty front seat and the leather clad youth sitting slouched with one knee up on the seat beside him. He nervously cleared his throat at the slightly suggestive tone of voice and the even more suggestive pose.

"Yeah, well I'll pass on _any_ physical contact thanks." He had enough trouble accepting Bumblebee and Sam being together, let alone even thinking about anything like that himself. Plus, he didn't know enough about the whole 'bonding' thing that Ironhide seemed so keen on, and he wasn't entirely sure he believed that it wasn't something the machines could just turn on if they wanted to. Something he definitely didn't want to fall victim to. Surprisingly the hologram laughed, throwing its head back in an extremely human gesture that, for just an instant, made Will forget that it wasn't.

"Very amusing Captain Lennox, you do realise we're having physical contact right this moment?" A pale yet powerful looking hand flourished briefly at the interior of the cabin and ran sexually across the leather of the seat before the twenty something chuckled at his uncomfortable expression. The supine form slowly bent long legs underneath and lent forward until he/it was crouched on hands and knees, their faces once again only inches apart.

"But alas for you, I have no interest in older men human, so you need not fear for your honour." A predatory smirk was flashed at him before the projection settled back down and turned to stare out the window.

"Then why…?" A non-real hand ran softly over the glass as the reflected eyes watched him.

"Because searching for you will delay that foolish Autobot, and because I may need assistance when we find Bumblebee and _his_ _human_." There was an uncomfortable emphasis on the way Barricade phrased 'his human' that made Will shift uncomfortably, so he didn't bother trying to explain that Sam wasn't Bumblebee's pet or possession. Besides, he wasn't certain he entirely believed it himself.

"Why would I help you to capture them?" He didn't raise his voice or even put any anger behind his words; they weren't even filled with bravado. He had a feeling that any attempt to seem brave or arrogant would only end the conversation, and right now he needed all the answers he could get. The Decepticon dropped his hand away from the window, red eyes slipping over to look at him, as though understanding what he was doing, before returning to the slowly lightening view rushing past outside.

"I have no intention of capturing them, merely ensuring that your 'Section 7' do not." To say he was surprised would have been an understatement of immense proportions. He thought he must have looked like a complete fool, sitting there with his brow hopelessly furrowed in thought, this ancient alien machine looking at him as he would a child, trying to understand an adult.

"I don't understand." A slight smile flashed across the simulated features reflected in the glass.

"I know you don't, human." It wasn't malicious; it didn't even have a sneer on the word 'human', only a statement of fact.

"Did you know that Bumblebee and I share the same matrix design?" He barely paused long enough for Will to shake his head before he continued.

"We were among the last to be given life before the war broke out and the allspark was lost to us." That pale hand gestured to the metal of the Decepticon's real body, the darkness of the interior.

"He still looks almost like he did when we first came online, pure, seemingly untainted by this battle that has raged for millennia. I was not so lucky." There was a self deprecating chuckle as the hand ceased gesturing and instead was held before the Decepticon's own gaze.

"Megatron had me altered, had my form made more 'suitable' for what he deemed my role to be. The skin may seem flawless, Captain, but underneath there are scars." He thought he was beginning to understand finally what was going on.

"So you're looking out for Bumblebee? Like a brother?" The harsh laugh was back, the glow behind those eyes seeming to intensify with a cruel mirth.

"No, Bumblebee and I have fought in hundreds of battles across hundreds of worlds and shown no mercy Captain." Will couldn't help rolling his eyes at the seeming overly dramatic drawing out of the conversation.

"So tell me then, why are you trying to save them?" The hologram moved so rapidly that he wondered if perhaps it hadn't so much turned as simply been projected in its new position. Red eyes burned him from so close he could feel the heat coming off the other form before the Decepticon moved to whisper in his ear.

"It would seem that Bumblebee and I have more in common than just a similarity of design." Will choked on his own saliva as his eyes went wide, the other form pulling back to give him some space.

"Sam?" Whatever the answer was he wouldn't find out right then, as a faint shudder passed through the car body around them. Glowing eyes rolled up in their sockets as the slim body seemed to convulse, the Decepticon skidding off the road in a disturbingly uncoordinated manner, throwing Will harshly against the restraint of the seatbelt.

When they finally came to a halt he found himself staring down at the back of the holographic head where it had fallen into his lap. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew the seatbelt wasn't going to release him so he hesitantly poked the apparently unconscious form sprawled across his lap.

"Hey, you alright?" The car beneath him vibrated slightly and red eyes once more stared up at him, the malicious smirk firmly back in place.

"I think that's enough answers for one night, human. Besides, Section 7 have made their move, and I personally want to be there to witness the result."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The electronic shriek of feedback filled the interior of the overcrowded van, the sound briefly joined by human cries as headsets were hurriedly knocked off, only to find the same noise issuing forth from the wall speakers around them. Everyone present swiftly slammed hands over ears in a futile effort to block out the scream that seemed to only get louder as the seconds ticked on. One of the technicians seated at a desk hunched over and fell to the floor, hands clawing at his face before seeming to have a seizure and falling unnaturally still. With a crack, sparks bloomed from several locations in the small space, hot components scorching flesh that got too close as the smell of fried electronics filled the van. Computer monitors flashed brilliant white, a colour and brightness that promised an overload, before everything promptly went dead.

No one moved in the sudden silence for several seconds, hesitant eyes seeking out their companions before eventually someone tentatively lifted a hand from first one ear and then the other. Slowly, the remaining men pried their palms away from the sides of their head and one of the two men standing near the door turned and slid it open to let the smoke and smell clear.

"I'm sorry sir, I don't know…" The timid man at the front of the group wrung his hands nervously as he was cut off with an imperious gesture, the hand of his superior falling back to his side.

"Was the transmission successful?" The technicians glanced at each other for a few brief seconds as though communicating silently with their eyes before eventually the question was answered.

"Yes sir. They received it." Behind the tall man his companion let out a relieved exhalation, tenseness leaving his shoulders as he leant back against the metal door frame behind him.

"Well thank god that's over." A soft chuckle came from the thin lipped mouth of the leader as he hunched over and proceeded out the door into the slowly lightening night. Mud squelched beneath two sets of shoes as they both stepped out of the humid and smoky interior of the van, the taller of the two taking the chance to straighten after the confines and adjust a slightly crooked tie.

"Only the chase, Peter, only the chase." His gaze turned speculatively to the north, following the curving highway until it disappeared between two distant peaks as though able to scent their approaching quarry.

"The war… Well, the war is only just starting."

_Fin_


	8. Chapter 8 Bumblebee

Hi All.

Insert Standard Disclaimer

Well here it is... Part 1 of the next chapter. I've decided to break it down by character, so the next part will see it this situation from otherperspectives, leading up to the next chapter 

I bet nobody believed that I'd be uploading this ;) but here it is.

Chapter 8

Although like most machines Bumblebee had always liked the certainty and comprehension that came from any suitably calculated possibility, in this particular case he would rather have had his processors running in an endless unsolvable loop than face the rapidly spiralling situation in front of him.

For the majority of his existence he had served the Autobots faithfully as a scout, heading into places and dangers that were beyond the scope of a normal battle. His role was not to blow a base up, it was to sneak in and eliminate that one critical element. There was no chance to call for help from outside sources, no one to back him up if things went wrong and no one he had to contact to clear his actions before carrying them out.

Because of that there was never an unexplored option, never an uncalculated possibility. He could infiltrate a Decepticon facility a hundred different ways, evade sensors with a thousand different algorithms and destroy a target so quickly that it would be gone before they even realised their perimeter had been breached. The choice was always his, the outcomes always numerous, and the risk solely to himself.

Now however, there were no other options, no decisions to make. He had made the choice on that highway and placed his fate in the hands of his bonded, to do as he would to the both of them. The certainty of escape versus the tiny sliver of a chance to save the mother of his partner.

The decision had been exactly as he thought it would be, the option given more as a formality. His only consolation was the knowledge that Sam could not possibly understand exactly how small their chances were, could not see the hundreds of possibilities his processors flashed before him. That pain at least he could spare him.

The cold night air was slowly giving way to dawn's tender caress around him, the sky lightening in warning to the denizens of the night that their dominion was about to end. His tyres had long since settled in the rain slick mud that lined the side of the road, his engine silent, but primed and ready to go again at a moments notice. To his side, the driver's door hung open in the damp air, an exit, should it be needed, perchance the circumstances in front of him changed for the worse. As his probability assessments reminded him though, there was only one thing worse than their current situation… And Sam wouldn't need an escape if things turned out like that.

The small flex of a finger, a warm spray of crimson, and it would all be over before he could even twitch.

And so his scanners were running in overdrive, extra power surging through the circuits until they threatened to burn out, every tiny bit of data analysed and inspected by a bank of processors before being stored for instant retrieval. He pushed himself and his systems as far as was possible; desperately trying to coax them into doing what he needed them to do... Pick up that tiny twitch of movement, the smallest flex of a finger, a glance of an eye, a gesture of a hand that could give him the second of warning he needed.

Not that any warning would be enough.

In front of him his bonded stood straight and tall, shivering slightly in the chill air but otherwise apparently unafraid of the pistol pressed threateningly against his temple. Personally B would have liked to see a little more. Certainly the men knew that Sam was their bargaining chip, that they couldn't do anything to him without losing what they came for. But there was always a chance, no matter how small, that things could go wrong. And so he checked, triple checked and then calculated again as the first glimpse of the sun crested the distant, forested horizon.

The sudden stab of brightness lit the clifftop like a plasma bomb, casting stark shadows across the earth before fading to the gentle orange glow of morning. It almost seemed to caress the deep black metal laced across the small form that was his bond mate, tiny pricks of light and dark that only served to highlight the tanned skin underneath, smooth and perfect.

"Do we understand each other Bumblebee?" The tall man standing near the centre seemed unperturbed by the remoteness of their location, standing as naturally in the mud in his tie and suit as he would have in a board room. A frantic scan of his databanks for some sort of identity had came up empty. The man had not been amongst his original captors at Hoover Dam.

He didn't know if the other man knew that he couldn't speak, or simply didn't expect an answer, but there had been no threat made, no actual conversation, simply the press of cold steel to his bonded's head.

"We understand…" Sam's voice was hollow in the warming air, hands clenched firmly at his sides, held there both by his own determination and by the large soldier currently restraining him.

There was a moment of silence as the unknown figure stared at his hood, eyes skimming the yellow and black paint job. B watched with his own visual sensors, monitoring for the slightest nervous twitch or bead of sweat, anything that would show a hint of emotion or state of mind.

There was nothing.

His in depth scans were just as unenlightening, heart rate steady, eyes unblinking and firm, hormone levels within average range for a male of his age and size. There wasn't a clue as to what he was thinking, and the fact that this human could hide it so well only increased the level of nervousness that was driving him to the brink of system burnout.

"Then we only need for you to prove it." Whether it was a prearranged signal or the leader had given some sign that B had missed, the man holding his bonded loosened his grip, shoving harshly at a metal laced shoulder to indicate the direction of one of the dark unmarked vans. B felt his engine almost unconsciously growl in warning as Sam stumbled from the force of the push.

"Don't worry. We're not going to harm him." The eyes flashed momentarily with malice. "Yet."

For a brief second brown eyes turned toward him as Sam climbed into the dark interior, and B hoped he was imagining the terror he saw hidden in their depths. It was barely an instant by human standards, then, with a metallic click, the sliding black door slammed shut, sealing his mate inside the other vehicle and away from all but his remote scanners.

With a purr the engine turned over and caught, the wheels slipping slightly in the roadside mud before catching and dragging themselves up onto the firm bitchumen, and then the van was moving away from him, in the direction they'd come from only minutes ago, taking his bonded with it and it was clear by the unmoving man in front of him that he was not to follow.

When the van became little more than a dark spot growing gradually smaller and then even that spot disappeared behind distant trees he couldn't help the crackling whine that came from his damaged vocals.

"Don't worry. You'll be back with him soon enough." Around him men came to life from their frozen positions, guns and nozzles of liquid nitrogen guns lowering as it became clear that he was unable to fight back, equipment hurriedly dismantled and thrown carelessly into the other cars that still surrounded him.

"First though we need you to take care of a little problem for us."

Fin~


	9. Chapter 9 Ironhide

Goddammit… Where does the time go? It seems like just a few weeks ago I was starting this story and yet it's actually been AGES!

It's extremely annoying because as we all get older we start getting more responsibilities, which means less time to do what we WANT to do, instead of what we HAVE to do…

I still really love the fandom, and if I could give up work tomorrow I'd be writing a lot more frequently. The problem is of course, that by the time the work week is over and I have time to myself, the last thing I want to do is spend hours in front of the computer writing :) I do that for a living every day!

Anyway… enough of my complaining and ranting. I read the same thing in so many author's notes that I think I could have just copied and pasted it from someone else :)

*Makes note to just copy and paste in future*

Oh, and I saw Revenge of the Fallen and OH MY GOD! I hate to squeal like a rabid fangirl (since that would involve both changing gender and losing several IQ points ;) no offence to any rabid fangirls out there!) but seriously!!! I was sitting in the huge IMAX theatre which was like packed to the brim, and every time Sam and Bee were on screen together having a touching moment I kept looking around to see if I was just the only weirdo who was thinking "how much more obvious could they make this?" I mean Mikaela was barely there at all… When Sam died and she ran over to him it was touching, but when Bee saw him lying there… I got chills… Either Michael Bay is putting it in there as fan service, or someone on the writing/directing staff is a Sam/Bee fan :D Or, you know… I'm just crazy. Which is always an option.

Oh and by the way… this chapter turned out nothing like I intended it to. I just sort of started rambling here because I realised that I'd had a really great chapter where we'd seen inside Ratchet's head and I wanted to do the same thing with Ironhide, because I guess I like to transpose human frailties onto the Transformers, and I think part of that would be the certain futility of everything that they're doing, but being unable to stop it.

Chapter 9 - Ironhide

Compared to the brief sparkle of the organic forms that covered the Earth, the life of an Autobot was inconceivably long. A Cybertronian life was a span of years that stretched ahead and behind for so far into the distance that even the death of a star was like the passing of an old friend. Oh humanity had names for such numbers, and mathematics to calculate them, and science to explain them. But when it came down to the simple question "do you understand?" there was no possible answer. Humanity's understanding of such time was as vague as their belief in a god. It was a number. Just a series of digits that combined to make a larger one. No more important than any other. They couldn't comprehend that the Autobots had actually lived it. Couldn't know the weight of history and memory that came with it. Ironhide had seen the process in action for himself as scientists questioned him after Mission City. He'd watched, astonished, as the futile clench of a forehead was followed by a lift of an eyebrow, before eventually his life was rendered on paper as nothing more than its component numerals. A billion years was an abstract concept to these organics, a period of time that both pre-dated life on their world and which would probably also see the end of it.

Humans would never experience the coalescing of a planet, or the collision of two stars, they couldn't sit on a dead and lifeless world and watch for a hundred thousand years as an ice comet slammed into it and gave birth to its first sea. They could witness the results, theorise on the process, but they would never understand it.

Within the electronic pathways of his processors, buried deep in areas he would never share, this fact made humanity as a whole such a very _small_ concern. Under normal circumstances the entire race would be considered a glitch, a mistake that could be written off as nothing more than a computational error, a planet full of people that, on a galactic scale, simply didn't matter. Saved in the vast number of permutations he constantly calculated on a daily basis, were figures he'd never admit to even having calculated, the fevered dreams of a bot trying to find some kind of light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel.

The results showed a species with no future of their own. They were not the light Ironhide knew he so desperately needed.

According to his own formulas there was less than 0.13 percent chance of any sort of interaction with humanity outside of its own solar system. 11 percent of the remaining possibilities showed limited survival of the species beyond a further five hundred Earth years. And of those that didn't show extinction, the majority showed a species destined to drown their own world under their weight, never leaving its surface to any meaningful degree.

At least, not without assistance.

And it was this very fact that so concerned him, regardless of what Optimus Prime had to say about the planet they currently called home. He'd seen the bravery and fierceness that the Autobot leader held up as the redeeming qualities of their new allies, and he'd never said a word against it. He'd meant to originally. He'd meant to make Optimus understand that their new allies were not the salvation the Autobots were looking for. But then he'd looked over the calculations his superior had given him, seen the innumerable flaws that should never have been overlooked, and the understanding had shut off his vocal modulator as effectively as one of Ratchet's laser scalpels. Optimus didn't want to see it. Didn't want to hear the objections that needed to be made. And Ironhide had felt his processors miss a beat when he'd looked up into those ancient optics and realised the truth. His leader, his comrade, his Prime, was tired. Exhausted in a way that he could barely understand, a life that had already been long well before Ironhide had even been a Sparkling. A life spent watching a society grow then fall around him, as the great leaders and thinkers he sometimes spoke of, became nothing but incongruous data, fragmented through memory files as their sparks returned to Primus.

Optimus _wanted_ to believe in humanity, _wanted_ them to have a place in the galaxy. He wanted a new empire to fill the void left by the one they had lost. Because Optimus had already realised how it was all going to end, and he desperately wanted to rest.

Like most of their comrades Ironhide had seen the truth revealed in the destroyed corpse of the Decepticon leader. He too had detected the radiation that meant the death of the allspark, and therefore the slow dwindling of their race. Optimus believed that Humanity was their redemption, a force that would restore law and order to a galaxy, and justify the struggles and sacrifices they had all been forced to make. He saw them as his last chance to take the mantle of duty from his shoulders. But Ironhide saw differently.

Where Optimus was a leader, he was a fighter. He could see the spirit that drove humanity, see the millions of small signs that the other bot, with his willingness to excuse and pardon, was willing to overlook. He saw a species driven by evolutionary instincts, holdovers of a time where paranoia and fear were essential for survival, a species that could make war and peace in the blink of an eye, and sowed deceit and subversion in the noblest of actions. Optimus could never control them, never hope to guide them. He would give them the power, the technology, and through it, the galaxy, but they were too small, too fast, and too short lived to learn what they needed to use them. They were like a horde of sparklings with malfunctioning input ports; they couldn't upload the data, they had to teach them as the humans taught their own young. But the lessons the Autobots needed to teach were too hard and too long to be taught in a human timescale. Information and understanding stored over an existence too large for humanity to comprehend. They would teach, and tutor and instruct, and when they had barely managed to pass on even a fraction of the knowledge they needed to, in the blink of an eye, a generation would pass, and the lessons would need to begin all over again. And then again. And again. Until the teachers were gone, and only the children remained.

Humanity was chaotic. Frantic and urgent in their quest to do as much as possible in the short time allotted to them, they were unpredictable, aggressive and more dangerous than Optimus gave them credit for. When the last of the Autobots was gone, and the guiding hand was removed, the galaxy would descend into war. And while humanity may need their help to spread its wings, they would not need help turning the advances Cybertronian technology granted them into weapons and sources of destruction. They may have been small, and fragile and so very short lived, but they were swift and vicious, and at every level, desperate to be stronger than everyone else.

And deep within those databanks that Ironhide kept hidden from everyone, he wondered if the galaxy would not do better if they were all simply wiped out.

For as far back as he still retained data, Ironhide couldn't remember a time when events around him had ever changed so drastically or quickly as they did on this one small blue world. His processors couldn't recall a time when control had not been only a calculation away, an equation that meant the future was as foreseeable as the past. Victory had always gone to the bot who calculated out the options first, correctly interpreted the variables and capitalised on them just a fraction earlier than an opponent. Before the war he had been a great combatant, competing at the highest levels to the adulation of crowds numbering billions. Each competition had been carefully planned, each decision calculated over and over, each contest played through unending permutations internally before he ever set foot in the arena. There had never been a time, until now, when so little conscious control was held, by any of the participants, over the outcome. He'd seen the way humans accepted that as a normal state of being, watched as soldiers fought each other on opposite sides of the world for causes that even a most preliminary computation would have eliminated. This was a species that did not need logic or planning to fight itself. This was a species that thrived on chaos.

That same chaos could be seen even within the bonding between Sam and Bumblebee. Sam was human, he was guided by instinct, he didn't have logic pathways that urged him towards one choice over another. Organic systems were too unpredictable. Where a cybertronian would have done one thing, Sam and Bumblebee did another, the human's influence over the bond resulting in outcomes that Ironhide simply couldn't foresee. And it wasn't just them, this entire world brought uncertainty into the Autobot's previously ordered system, his processors shrieking in protest as they failed to find all the possibilities contained in every action.

It seemed that every calculation unfurled more paths to follow, running the same assessment again could result in a different outcome each time, error messages and warnings flashed into his buffers as fast as he could delete them. They sowed uncertainty in their wake, and Optimus proposed to unleash them on the galactic stage. The thought terrified him as much as his loathing of Megatron. Even as his processors turned towards calculations of it he could feel them resist, trying to skew the results towards the ordered and comprehensible, the understood and the known. He couldn't help himself. No matter how advanced they were, no matter how far they came or how many worlds they visited, at the core of every spark buzzed the circuits of a machine.

To know something was to be able to predict it. Knowing that action A led to outcome B. Machines liked order. Liked stability. Where who and what you were was the same one moment to the next. It was the antithesis to everything humanity represented, where biology changed from one day to another, where unpredictability was accounted for and factored into everything, in a way he could never hope to understand. Nothing any Cybertronian had ever experienced could compare to the chaos that was humanity, not even the fall of their own race. And that was something he hadn't thought about in a long, long time.

In all the years worth of data at his disposal, the betrayal by Megatron was the single most tumultuous event to ever befall him. No one could have seen it coming; no one could have suspected that one of their own had processors that turned calculations toward revolution. The certainty of their existence had been founded on a united Cybertron, a race and world of one purpose and destiny.

When Megatron struck, their reality had fallen into confusion, programming adjusting and rewriting itself to understand that everything they had once known had just changed. Friend turned against friend, teammate against teammate.

Brother against brother.

It had been brutal, unexpected, and unforseen. But even then, in the darkest days of the initial conflict, when the vast factories had turned their production toward warfare and the group not yet known as Autobots had been on the run, things had been different to now. Cybertronians did nothing without reason, did nothing without knowing the odds. Humanity was not so accommodating.

When Megatron had turned against their world calculations had been completed, the variables inserted where needed, the programming of each side a known factor that could be taken as absolute by those choosing their loyalty. Compatibility protocols, usually only active when seeking a bond mate, lit up with a surge of power, weighing the moral and ethical subroutines of each leader and their lieutenants and then comparing them to each bots own. For those who did not immediately find one group more suited than the other, additional calculations had been required, probabilities analysing both sides and their chance of success, and then comparing that to their own acceptable margin of error. Ironhide had seen friendships ended in an instant as computations had given different outcomes to different bots, comrades who had worked together since memory began, choosing opposing factions.

He had been forced to make those calculations himself, watching as the results tore society apart around him. In the arena he had never foolishly rushed into one choice just because it seemed better at the time. There was little point in taking an opportune shot at your opponent if it left you cornered or vulnerable. True, Megatron had, and always would, view himself as above those around him, but Ironhide had seen the method in Megatron's madness. He had seen the adoration in the optics of his followers, admired the drive to succeed at all costs, and respected the call to create an empire based on power and control. These things he could understand. But he had also seen the determination evident in Optimus's swift retaliation, seen the staunch, unbending strength, and the resolution never to yield.

His processors had aligned with the Autobots.

Since that day his loyalty had never wavered, as in all the contests he had once fought in the arena, his spark was now locked on that goal. Machines liked certainty. They liked knowing that what was one way today, would be the same way the next. He'd chosen his side, their leader had chosen a goal, and nothing short of victory could alter them now.

And life, became different.

It was a change to be certain, but only to the extent that Cybertron had two children now, not one. Behind it all, beyond the conflict and collapse, lay the knowledge that one day its offspring would once more be whole. After all, they had the cube and its power, they had numbers beyond measure, they had an empire over the stars, and at the end of the long day, whether they flew war banners under Megatron or parlayed for peace under Optimus, they would endure.

So he had been one of the first to be modified, the previously harmless tactical weapons removed and the plasma cannons the first, but not the last change he would go through. Programs designed to predict his opponent's actions in contest were expanded to consider the movements of armies, subroutines that evaluated defeat or surrender were deleted or fire walled to prevent activation or hacking. And, just days after the war began, when he'd first turned his improvements against another being, he'd watched, impassively, as green armour melted away beneath his cannons, and tried to ignore the traitorous voice, whispering that a small piece of him had melted with it. It was a voice from another time, another reality, and it didn't matter anymore.

He'd given his freedom into Prime's hands, his choices, and forged himself into a weapon of war. And Prime wielded him as skilfully as any cannon.

And if each battle left him just a little more tired, each dead planet just a little more resigned, each spark extinguished somehow a little more disillusioned, he never let it show, never gave voice to the thought. Because those things didn't matter either. The war went on regardless. Optimus needed him, needed someone else to be as strong as he was, someone else who never wavered or gave him cause to doubt his own convictions. Someone he could give a mission to and trust that it would be carried out as though he had done it himself. Someone he could trust to do what had to be done, on those occasions when he himself couldn't.

Even the most powerful suffer from moments of self doubt, moments where they question their decisions and choices, and none moreso than Prime. He didn't know if Megatron ever worried over the loss of a subordinate, or wondered whether he'd done something wrong. He'd suspected it a few times over the years, but never confirmed it one way or the other. In his own leader's gaze however, he saw it every day. Sometimes he could just stand there, his processors silent, and watch Optimus staring into the distance, that powerful spark seeing choices and possibilities that Ironhide would never understand. And if he ever wondered why he'd become what he was, why he kept letting his spark slowly dim as the years went on, all he had to do was see the intensity in that blue stare.

The last of the Primes.

It was worth the loss then. It was worth the brief moments of sadness or regret. For Cybertron to be reborn, Optimus, not Megatron, had to be victorious. Only then would his obligation be ended. It was that knowledge that let him keep fighting.

And then disaster arrived, like one of the ancient human gods of the apocalypse. A chain reaction no one expected. A planet destroyed in the space of a day.

Billions of sparks were extinguished in an instant, killed, screaming, by cosmic fire. Autobots and Decepticons alike blasted apart in the destruction, and, when the chaos had finally settled and rescue teams from both sides had searched the wreckage of what had once been a world, _their_ world, the final truth discovered. The allspark was gone.

A single unforseen event in their perfectly planned little war. That was all the chaos it took to end a world.

And once again, everything he knew, had changed.

The war became harder after that day, the conflicts more deadly, the deaths more brutal. He'd stood at Prime's right hand when the news had arrived. He'd felt, for an instant, as though the spark energy had drained right out of him, that he could just shutdown and go into stasis forever. Then he'd looked up towards Optimus, seen the recrimination and doubt hidden behind a front of revenge and anger, and he'd known that his duty continued, regardless of anything else. Optimus needed him. Needed him to do the things he couldn't. Needed him to answer the question. Because Ironhide could understand, would not see him as weak in this one moment.

"_What now 'hide?"_

He could still see the reflection of the dull red sunlight off the silver armour, hear his own voice respond as though there had never even been another option.

"_We keep going."_

Because there was nothing else to do. That part of their lives hadn't changed. Or at least that was what he tried to tell himself. It's what he repeated the day the last of the sparklings joined the ranks on both side. It had become mantra the day they abandoned a once critical world. Until by the time their empire had slowly, gradually, fallen by the wayside, it had been fact.

"_We keep going."_

And a new certainty had come to rule what remained of them.

The side that claimed the allspark, claimed victory.

So a new directive was born and life continued, their little war turning into a slow race toward attrition. Like the contests he had once bested, each side tried to out-calculate the other, to be one step ahead, one planet closer to an invisible goal, a constant battle to make sure _their_ faction got it first. They pursued it with single mindedness that almost overwhelmed them at times, because if they stopped, if they gave themselves time to think, they would see that one, tiny equation, that told them it didn't matter either way. And that was an answer none of them could face. So the war didn't even pause when battles wiped out millions, didn't give a thought as the great cities were abandoned, hardly even noticed when once thriving colonies were left empty, and didn't even care when friends and comrades vanished or fell.

There had been some, on the fringes, that voiced their alarm as the war took its toll, as each dead end resulted in futile fights over nothing but misinformation and deceit. There had been calls in the early days after the loss, for peace between the two sides. That a coordinated search was far more likely to find what had been lost than futilely confusing each other and killing over fabricated information. It was logical. It was probable. But by then the war was well underway, and to make a truce would have meant surrender for one side, or compromises that neither were prepared to make.

So time had moved on, the galaxy had turned and the voices had slowly fallen silent, as those not as obsessed with the cause wavered and were struck down by their enemy. Until only the most dedicated remained. They danced on unbreakable cables, while above their heads Prime and Megatron pulled them this way and that, fighting their own private battles. They went where they were told, they fought what they had to, because this was the world now. This was how things were. And eventually, even the death of their race could no longer stay their hands.

Ironhide had never questioned any of it, had never asked why or what for. Megatron was an enemy now. Anyone who sided with him was an enemy. And he was designed to kill them. It was the only thing that could set them free.

But things weren't that simple anymore. Here, on humanity's world, there were other factions to consider, more sides than he could possibly take into account, each with their own agenda that could bring them into conflict with the Autobots at a moment's notice. And now there was Sam and Bumblebee as well.

A world full of so much chaos he almost longed for the days of cold solitude as he flew between the stars.

"_Bring them back safe Ironhide."_

That had been the mission when Prime had pointed him along this course, but it had not been what the other bot meant.

"_We can't let a rogue human agency have control of them."_

It had been unsaid between them, the fact that to succeed at the second, might mean failing the first, but then some things didn't need to be put into words to be just as clearly understood. And this understanding, this knowledge, that he had to be able to do what his leader could not, was just one of the invisible threads that tied them together. He needed to be strong when Optimus was weak, had to be prepared to kill a friend and let his own spark dim, so the light of the Primes could keep them all going just a little longer. He had to forget names and faces, and see only targets. He had to prepare humanity to take its place amongst the stars. Not because he wanted to do these things, or because he thought they were right, but because Prime wanted it. And it was the only way their leader could avoid being crushed under the weight of the responsibility.

And if that weight bore down on his own shoulders instead, well that was a price that Ironhide had always been willing to pay.

So as he cleared the treeline at the top of the towering cliff and saw the glowing blue optics hidden under brilliant yellow battle guards, his transformation was already engaged. When his sensors told him what he already knew, that he'd wasted precious time searching for Captain Lennox and allowed Sam to be taken, the plasma was already surging to his cannons. And as he dodged the first of the blazing discharges levelled at him, he was already walling off that part of himself that could still feel something for those he gunned down.

Because once again friend had become enemy. A rescue had become an attack. An Autobot had become an obstacle. Their sparkling had become a warrior. And around him he thought he could almost see the world became just a little bit darker, feel the sun grow colder, and for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, Ironhide briefly pondered what it would be like to just let the end come. To just give in and let Bumblebee win, because he at least, had found something beyond duty that gave him purpose.

But such thoughts didn't matter anymore. Such choices weren't his to make.

Optimus needed him to be a weapon.

And weapons didn't care for those they destroyed.

_Fin~_

I have to admit I like this chapter. Do you get the feeling that I like my Autobots dark? Lol. First Ratchet, now Ironhide and a bit of Prime. Though I think we already got a glimpse of Prime way back in Combustion through his talk with Bee.

I don't mean to be negative with them, I just think that after so much, to come so far and then have the allspark destroyed. That's got to take its toll on you.

Hope you like!


End file.
